PROGRESS AND POVERTY : 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE 



CA USE_ OF IND USTRIAL DEPRESSIONS, 



AND OF 



NCREASE OF WANT WITH INCREASE OF WEALTtt 



THE REMEDY. 



BY 

HENRY GEORGE 



New York : 
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

14 & 16 Vesey StreeTc 



HENRY GEORGE'S WORKS 

CONTAINED IN LOVELL's LIBRARY. 

NO. I'Ti- 

52 Progress and Poverty, ..... . 20c 

390 The Land Question, . . . . ... . loc 

393 Social Problems, . . . . ... . 20': 

796 Property in Land, . . • . • • • • ^5 



I should be glad to hear from those who shai the 
views expressed in this book, and who desire to advance 
them. 

Address, 

HENRY GEORGE, 
CARE John W. Lovelj Co., 

14 and 11 Vesey St., N. Y. 

SOURCE UNKNOWN 
3 1943 



TROWS 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 

NEW YORK. 



Entered stccoiding to Act of Congress, In the year 1879, by 

HENRY GEORGE, 
In the ofHce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



D 



7/ / //^K 



! --^ '-' — -■ 



PROGRESS AND POVERTY: 

AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSIONS, AND OF INCREASl 
OF WANT WITH INCREASE OF WBALTH. — THE REMEDY. 

By henry GEORGE. 

Make for thyself a definition or description of the thing which is presented to 

*".ee, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is, in its substance, in its nudity, 

■' its complete entirety, and tell thyself its proper name, an.i the names of the 

iings of which it has been compounded, and into which it wil. be resolved. For 

/ hing is so productive of elevation of mind as to be able to examine method- 

' and truly every object which is presented to thee in life, and always to look 

.mgs so as to see at the same time what kind of universe this is, and what kind 

use everything performs in it, and what value everything has with reference to 

e whole, and what with reference to man, who is a citizen of the highest city, of 

lich all other cities are like families ; what each thing is, and of what it is com- 

pcsed,andhow long it is the nature of this thing to endure. — Marcus Aurelius 

A nfoninus. 



TO THOSE WHO, SEEING THE VICE AND MISERY THAT SPRING FROM THE UNEQUAL DISTRI- 
BUTION OF WEALTH AND PRIVILEGE, FEEL THE POSSIBILITY OF A HIGHER j 
SOCIAL STATE, AND WOULD STRIVE FOR ITS ATTAINMENT, 

San Francisco^ March^ 1879. 

There must be refuge \ Men 
Perished in winter winds till one smote fire 
From flint stones coldly hiding what they held, 
The red spark treasured from the kindling sun • 
They gorged on flesh like wolves, till one sowed com. 
Which grew a weed, yet makes the life of man • 
They moweu ana Dabbled till some tongue struck speech. 
And patient fingers framed the lettered sound 
What good gift have my brothers, but it came 
From search and strife and loving sacrifice ? — Edwin Arnold* 

Never yet 
Share of Truth was vainly set 

In the world's wide fallow : 
After hands shall sow^ the seed, 
After hands, from hill and mead, 

Reap the harvests yellow. — Whittier, 



PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION. 

The views herein set forth were in the main briefly stated in a 
pamphlet entitled " Our Land and Land Policy," published in San 
Francisco in 187 1. I then intended, as soon as I could, to present them 
more fullj, but the opportunity did not for a long time occur. In the 
mean while I became even more firmly convinced of their truth, and saw 



2 PREFACE. 

more completely and clearly their relations ; and I also saw how many 
false ideas and erroneous habit.-, of thought stood in the way of their 
recognition, and how necessary it was to go over the whole ground. 

This I have here tried to do, as thoroughly as space would permit. It 
has be«n necessary for me to clear away before I could build up, and to 
write at once for those who have made no previous study of such sub- 
jects, and for those who are familiar with economic reasonings ; and, so 
great is the scope of the argument, that it has been impossible to treat 
with the fullness they deserve many of the questions raised. What I 
have most endeavored to do is to establish general principles, trusting 
to my readers to carry further their applications where this is needed. 

In certain respects this book will be best appreciated by those who 
have some knowledge of economic literature ; but no previous reading is 
necessary to the understanding of the argument or the passing of judg- 
ment upon its conclusions. The facts upon which I have relied are not 
facts which can only be verified by a search through libraries. They are 
facts of common observation and common knowledge, which every 
reader can verify for himself, just as he can decide whether the reasoning 
from them is or is not valid. 

Beginning with a brief statement of facts which suggest this inquiry, I 
proceed to examine the explanation currently given in the name of politi 
cal economy of the reason why, in spite of the increase of productive 
power, wages tend to the minimum of a bare living. This examination 
shows that the current doctrine of wages is founded upon a misconcep- 
tion ; that, in truth, wages are produced by the labor for which they are 
paid, and should, other things being equal, increase with the number of 
laborers. Here the inquiry meets a doctrine which is the foundation and 
center of most important economic theories, and which has powerfully 
influenced thought in all directions — ^the Malthusian doctrine, that 
population tends to increase faster than subsistence. Examination, 
however, shows that this doctrine has no real support either in fact 
or in analogy, and that when brought to a decisive test it is utterly 
disproved. 

Thus far the results of the inquiry, though extremely important, are 
mainly negative. They show that current theories do not satisfactorily 
explain the connection of poverty with material progress, but throw no 
light upon the problem itself, beyond showing that its solution must be 
sought in the laws which govern the distribution of wealth. It therefore 
becomes necessary to carry the inquiry into this field. A preliminary 
review shows that the three laws of distribution must necessarily corre- 
late with each other, which as laid down by the current political economy 
they fail to do, and an examination of the terminology in use reveals the 
confusion of thought by which this discrepancy has been slurred over. 
Proceeding then to work out the laws of distribution, I first take up the 
law of rent. This, it is readily seen, is correctly apprehended by the 
current political economy. But it is also seen that the full scope of this 
law has not been appreciated, and that it involves as corollaries the laM^s 
of wages and interest — the cause which determines what part of the 
produce shall go to the land-owner necessarily determining what part 
shall be left for labor and capital. Without resting here, I proceed to 
independent deductions of the laws of interest and wages. I have 
stopped to determine the real cause and justification of interest, and to 
point put a source of much naisconceptioa — the confounding of what rare 
really the profits of monopoly with the legitimate earnings of capital. 
Then returning to the main inquiry, iiiy estimation shows that interest 



PREFACE. 3 

must rise and fall with wages, and depends ultimately upon the same 
thing as rent — the margin of cultivation, or point in production where 
rent begins. A similar but independent investigation of the law of wages 
yields similar harmonious results. Thus the three laws of distribution 
are brought into mutual support and harmony, and the fact that with 
material progress rent everywhere advances is seen to explain the fact 
that wages and interest do not advance. 

What causes this advance of rent is the next question that arises, and 
it necessitates an examination of the effect of material progress upoii" the 
distribution of wealth. Separating the factors of material progress into 
increase of population and improvements in the arts, it is first seen that 
increase in population tends constantly, not merely by reducing the mar- 
gin of cultivation, but by localizing the economies and powers which 
come with increased population, to increase the proportion of the aggre- 
gate produce which is taken in rent, and to reduce that which goes as 
wages and interest. Then eliminating increase of population, it is seen 
that improvement in the methods and powers of production tends in the 
same direction, and, land being held as private property. Would produce 
in a stationary population all the effects attributed by the Malthusian 
doctrine to pressure of population. And then a consideration of the 
effects of the continuous increase in land-values which thus springs from 
material progress reveals in the speculative advance inevitably begotten 
when land is private property a derivative but most powerful cause 
of the increase of rent and the crowding down of Wages. Deduction 
shows that this cause must necessarily produce periodical industrial 
depressions, and induction proves the conclusion ; while fi om the analysis 
which has thus been made it. is seen that the necessary result of material 
progress, land being private property, is, no matter what the increase in 
population, to force laborers to wages that give but a bare living. 

This identification of the cause that associates poverty with progress^ 
points to the remedy, but it is to so radical a remedy that I have next 
deemed it necessary to inquire whether there is any other remedy. 
Beginning the investigation again from another starting-point, I have 
passed in examination the measures and tendencies currently advocated 
or trusted in for the improvement of the condition of the laboring 
masses. The result of this investigation is to prove the preceding one, 
as it shows that nothing short of making land common property can per- 
manently relieve poverty and check the tendency of wages to the starva* 
tion point. 

The question of justice now naturally arises, and the inquiry passes 
into the field of ethics. An investigation of the nature and basis of 
property shows that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable difference 
between property in things which are the product of labor and property 
in land ; that the one has a natural basis and sanction while the other 
has none, and that the recognition of exclusive property in land is neces* 
sarily a denial of the right of property in the products of labor. Further 
investigation shows that private property in land always has, and always 
must, as development proceeds, lead to the enslavement of the laboring 
class ; that land-owners can make no just claim to compensation if 
society choose to resume its right ; that so far from private property in 
land being in accordance with the natural perceptions of men, the very 
reverse is true, and that in the United States we are already beginning 
to feel the effects of having admitted this erroneous and destructive 
principle. 

The inquiry then passes to the 5eld of practical statesmanship. It is 



4 PREFACE. 

seen that private property in land, instead of being necessary to its 
imptovement and use, stands in the way of improvement and use, and 
entails an enormous waste of productive forces ; that the recognition of 
the common right to land involves no shock or dispossession, but is to be 
reached by the simple and easy method of abolishing all taxation save 
that upon land-values. And an inquiry into the principles of taxa- 
tion shows land-values to be, in all respects, the best subject of taxation. 

A consideration of the effects of the change proposed then shows that 
it would enormously increase production ; would secure justice in distri- 
bution ; would benefit all classes ; and would make possible an advance 
to a higher and nobler civilization. 

The inquiry now rises to a wider field, and re-commences from another 
starting-point. For not only do the hopes which have been raised come 
into collision with the wide-spread idea that social progress is only possi- 
ble by slow race improvement, but the conclusions we have arrived at 
assert certain laws which, if they are really natural laws, must be mani- 
fest in universal history. As a final test, it therefore becomes necessary 
to work out the law of human progress, for certain great facts which 
force themselves on our attention as soon as we begin to consider this 
subject, seem utterly inconsistent with what is now the current theory. 
This inquiry shows that differences in civilization are not due to differ- 
ences in individuals, but rather to differences in social organization ; that 
progress, always kindled by association, always passes into retrogression 
as inequality is developed ; and that even now, in modern civilization, 
the causes which have destroyed all previous civilizations are beginning 
to manifest themselves, and that tnere political democracy is running its 
course toward anarchy and despotism. But it also identifies the law of 
social life with the great moral law of justice, and, proving previous con- 
clusions, shows how retrogression may be prevented and a grander 
advance begun. This ends the inquiry. The final chapter will explain 
itself. 

The great importance of this inquiry will be obvious. If it has been 
carefully and logically pursued, its conclusions completely change the 
character of political economy, give it the coherence and certitude of a 
true science, and bring it into full sympathy with the aspirations of the 
masses of men, from which it has long been estranged. What I have 
done in this book, if I have correctly solved the great problem I have 
sought to investigate, is, to unite the truth perceived by the school of 
Smith and Ricardo to the truth perceived by the school of Proudhon and 
Lasalle ; to show that laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the 
way to a realization of the noble dreams of socialism ; to identify social 
law with moral law, and to disprove ideas which in the minds of many 
cloud grand and elevating perceptions. 

This work was written between August, 1877, and March, 1879, and the 
plates finished by September of that year. Since that time new illustra- 
tions have been given of the correctness of the views herein advanced, 
and the march of events — and especially that great movement which has 
begun in Great Britain in the Irish land agitation — shows still more 
clearly the pressing nature of the problem I have endeavored to solve. 
But there has been nothing in the criticisms they have received to induce 
any change or modification of these views — in fact, I have yet to see an 
objection not answered in advance in the book itself. And except that 
some verbal errors have been corrected and a preface added, this edition 
is the same as previous ones. 

HsNUY George. 
New York. November, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



25 
39 
54 
61 



PAGE 

Introductory. 
The Problem ....... .7 

Book I — Wages and Capital. 

Chapter I— The current doctrine— its insufficiency 

II — The meaning of the terms , . . . 

Ill — Wages not drawn from capital, but produced by labor 
IV— The maintenance of- laborers not drawn from capital 
V — The real functions of capital .... 

Book II— Population and Subsistence. 

Chapter I— The Malthusian theory— its genesis and support . . 68 

II — Inferences from fact ..... 76 

III — Inferences from analogy ..... 95 

IV — Disproof of the Malthusian theory . . . 103 

Book III — The Laws of Distribution. 

Chapter I — The inquiry narrowed to the laws of distribution — necessary rela- 
tion of these laws . , . . . .112 
II — Rent and the law of rent ..... 121 
III — Interest and the cause of interest .... 127 
IV — Of spurious capital and profits often mistaken for interest . 138 
V — The law of interest ....;. 143 
VI — Wages and the law of wages ..... 149 
VII — Correlation and co- ordination of these laws . , . 159 
VIII — The statistics of the problem thus explained . ... 161 

Book IV — Effect of Material Progress upon the Distribution of Wealth. 

Chapter I — The dynamics of the problem yet to seek . . .164 

II — Effect of increase of population upon the distribution of wealth 166 

III — Effect of improvements in the arts upon the distribution of wealth 176 

IV — Effect of the expectation raised by material progress . 184 

Book V — The Problem Solved. 

Chapter I — The primary cause of recurring paroxysms of industrial depression i8g 
II — The persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth . 2©3 



CONTENTS. 



Book VI — The Remedy. 



Chapter I — Insufficiency of remedies currently advocated . , 215 

II — The true remedy . ^ . . . . , 236 



Book VII — Justice of the Remedy. 

Chapter I — Injustice of private property in land 

II — Enslavement of laborers the ultimate result of private p 
land . . ... 

Ill — Claim of land owners to compensation 
IV — Property in land historically considered 
V — Property in land in the United States 

Book VIII — Application of the Remedy. 



operty in 



239 

249 

257 
265 
277 



Chante*" I — Private property in land inconsistent with the best use of land 286 

II — How equal rig^hts to the land may be asserted and secured 290^ 

III — The proposition tried by the canons of taxation . . 294 

IV — Indorsements and objections ..... 303 

Book IX — Effects of the Rj:medy. 

Chapter I — Of the effect upon the production of wealth . . . 310 

II— Of the effect upon distribution and thence upon production 315 

III— Of the effect upon individuals and classes . . .320 

IV— Of the changes that would be wrought in social organization and 

social life ....... 325 

Book X— The Law of Human Progress. 

Chapter I— The current theory of human progress— its insufficiency . 339 

II — Differences in civilization — to what due . . .349 

III — ^The law of human progress ... 361 

IV — How modern civilization may decline .... 377 

V— The central truth .,....• 39<5 

Conclusion. 
The problem of individual life . . • • e • i 397 



INTRODUCTORY 



Ye build f ye build ! but ye enter not in, _ . . 

Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in thfeiirsiri : 
Frorn the land of promise ye fade and die, 
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your wearied eye. 

-^Mrs. Stgournky. 



THE PROBLEM. 

The present century has been marked by a prodigious 
increase in wealth-producing power. The utilization of steam 
arid electricity, the introduction of improved processes and 
labor-saving machinery, the greater subdivision and grander 
scale of production, the wonderful facilitation of exchanges 
have mujtiplied enormously the effectiveness of labor. 

At the beginning of this marvelous era it was natural to 
expect, and it was expected, that labor-saving inventions 
would lighten the toil and improve the condition of the 
laborer ; that the enormous increase in the power of produc- 
ing wealth would make real poverty a thing of the past. 
Could a man of the last century-^a Franklin or a Priestley-^ 
have seen, in a vision of the future, the steamship taking the 
place of the sailing vessel, the railroad train of the wagon, 
the reaping machine of the scythe, the threshing machine of 
the flail ; could he have Jieard the throb of the engines that 
in obedience to human will, and for the satisfaction of human 
desire, exert a power greater than that of all the men and all 
the beasts of burden of the earth combined ; could he have 
seen the forest tree transformed into finished lumber---into 
doors, sashes, blinds, boxes or barrels, with hardly the touch 
of a human hand ; the great workshops where boots and 
shoes are turned out by the case with less labor than the old- 
fashioned cobbler could have put on a sole ; the factories 
where, under the eye of a girl, cotton becomes cloth faster 
than hundreds of stalwart weavers could have turned it out 
with their hand-looms ; could he have seen steam hanlmers 
shaping mammoth shafts and mighty anchors, and dehcate 
machinery making tiny watches ; the diamond drill cutting 
through the heart of the rocks, and coal oil sparing the 



8 INTRODUCTORY, 

whale ; could he have realized the enormous saving of labor 
resulting from improved facilities of exchange and communi- 
cation — sheep killed in Australia eaten fresh in England, and 
the order given by the London banker in the afternoon exe- 
cuted in San Francisco in the morning of the same day ; 
could he have conceived of the hundred thousand improve- 
ments which these only suggest, what would he have inferred 
us to the social condition of mankind ? 

It would not have seemed like an inference ; further than the 
vision went, it would have seemed as though he saw ; and 
his heart would have leaped and his nerves would have 
thrilled, as one who from a height beholds just ahead of the 
thirst-stricken caravan the living gleam of rustling woods and 
the glint of laughing waters. Plainly, in the sight of the 
imagination, he would have beheld these new forces elevating 
society from its very foundations, lifting the very poorest 
above the possibility of want, exempting the very lowest from 
anxiety for the material needs of life ; he would have seen 
these slaves of the lamp of knowledge taking on themselves 
the traditional curse, these muscles of iron and sinews of 
steel making the poorest laborer's life a holiday, in which 
every high quality and noble impulse could have scope 
to grow. 

And out of these bounteous material conditions he would 
have seen arising, as necessary sequences, moral conditions 
realizing the golden age of which mankind have always 
dreamed. Youth no longer stunted and starved ; age no 
longer harried by avarice ; the child at play with the tiger ; 
the man with the muck-rake drinking in the glory of the stars ! 
Foul things fled, fierce things tame ; discord turned to har- 
mony ! For how could there be greed Avhere all had 
enough ? How could the vice, the crime, the ignorance, the 
brutality, that spring from poverty and the fear of poverty, 
exist where poverty had vanished ? Who should crouch where 
all were freemen ; who oppress where all were peers ? 

More or less vague or clear, these have been the hopes, 
these the dreams born of the improvements which give this 
wonderful century its preeminence. They have sunk so deeply 
into the popular mind as to radically change the currents of 
thought, to recast creeds and displace the most fundamental 
conceptions. The haunting visions of higher possibilities 
have not merely gathered splendor and vividness, but their 
direction has changed — instead of seeing behind the faint 



THE PR OBLEM. 9, 

tinges of an expiring sunset, all the glory of the daybreak has 
decked the skies before. 

It is true that disappointment has followed disappointment, 
and that discovery upon discovery, and invention after inven- 
tion, have neither lessened the toil of those who most need 
respite, nor brought plenty to the poor. But there have been 
so many things to which it seemed this failure could be laid, 
that up to our time the new faith has hardly weakened. 
We have better appreciated the difficulties to be overcome ; 
but not the less trusted that the tendency of the times was to 
overcome them. 

Now, however, we are coming into collision with facts which 
there can be no mistaking. From all parts of the civilized 
world come complaints of industrial depression ; of labor 
condemned to involuntary idleness ; of capital massed and 
wasting ; of pecuniary distress among business men ; of want 
and suffering and anxiety among the working classes. All 
the dull, deadening pain, all the keen, maddening anguish, 
that to great masses of men are involved in the words " hard 
times," afflict the world to-day. This state of things, com- 
mon to communities differing so widely in situation, in politi- 
cal institutions, in fiscal and financial systems, in density of 
population and in social organization, can hardly be accoun- 
ted for by local causes. There is distress where large stand- 
ing armies are maintained, but there is also distress where 
the standing armies are nominal ; there is distress where 
protective tariffs stupidly and wastefully hamper trade, but 
there is also distress where trade is nearly free ; there is dis- 
tress where autocratic government yet prevails, but there 
is also distress where political power is wholly in the 
hands of the people ; in countries where paper is money, and 
in countries where gold and silver are the only currency. 
Evidently, beneath all such things as these, we must infer a 
common cause. 

That there is a common cause, and that it is either what 
we call material progress, or something closely connected 
with material progress, becomes more than an inference when 
it is noted that the phenomena we class together and speak 
of as industrial depression, are but intensifications of phenom- 
ena which always accompany material progress, and which 
show themselves more clearly and strongly as material prog- 
ress goes on. Where the conditions to which material 
progress everywhere tends are most fully realized — that is to 
say, where population is densest, wealth 2Teatest, aii<l l.^ 1 



lo IITTRODUCTORY, 

machinery of production and exchange most highly developed 
— we find the deepest poverty, the sharpest struggle for exist- 
ence,, and the most enforced idleness. 

It is to the newer countries — that is, to the countries where 
material progress is yet in its earlier stages — that laborers 
emigrate in search of higher wages, and capital flows in 
search of higher interest. It is in the older countries — that 
is to say, the countries where material progress has reached 
2ater stages — that widespread destitution is found in the 
midst of the greatest abundance. Go into one of the new 
communities where Anglo-Saxon vigor is just beginning the 
race of progress ; where the machinery of production and 
exchange is yet rude and inefficient ; where the increment of 
wealth is not yet great enough to enable any class to live in 
ease and luxury ; where the best house is but a cabin of logs 
or a doth and paper shanty, and the richest man is forced to 
daily work — 'and though you will find an absence of wealth 
and all its concomitants, you will find no beggars. There is 
no luxury, but there is no destitution. No one makes an 
easy living, nor a very good living ; but every one can make 
a living, and no one able and willing to work is oppressed by 
the fear of want. 

But just as such a community realizes the conditions which 
all civilized communities are striving for, and advances in the 
scale of material progress — just as closer settlement and a 
more intimate connection with the rest of the world, and 
greater utilization of labor-saving machinery, make possible 
greater economies in production and exchange, and weal i 
in consequence increases, not merely in the aggregate, but 
in proportion to population — so does poverty take a darker 
aspect. Some get an infinitely better and easier living, but 
others . find it hard to get a living at all. The " tramp" 
comes with the locomotive, and almshouses and prisons are 
as surely the marks of ^' material progress " as are costly 
dwellings, rich warehouses, and magnificent churches. Upon 
streets lighted w'.:^.- gas and patrolled by uniformed policemen, 
beggars wait ^or ':he pac::or-by, and in the shadow of college, 
and librarj, 'D.d miisemu, are gathering the more hideous 
Huns and fie. -^er Vandals of whom Macaulay prophesied. 

This fact — tii-^ «:^reat fact that poverty and all its concomitants 
show themselves . - communities just as they develop into the 
conditions towara "'hich m.aterial progress tends — proves 
that the social difiicu 'es existing" wherever a certain stage of 
progress has been reachedj do .»^7 . "^'se ^rom local circunv 



THE PROBLEM. U 

Stances, but are, in some way or another, engendered by 
progress itself. 

And, unpleasant as it may be to admit it, it is at last becoming 
evident that the enormous increase in productive power which 
has marked the present century and is still going on with 
accelerating ratio, has no tendency to extirpate poverty or to 
lighten the burdens of those compelled to toil. It sirapl}^ 
widens the gulf between Dives and Lazarus, and makes the 
struggle for existence more intense. The march of invention 
has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the 
boldest imagination could not have dreamed. But in factories 
where labor-saving machinery has reached its most wonderful 
development, little children are at work ; wherever the new 
forces are anything like fully utilized, large classes are main- 
tained by charity or live on the verge of recourse to it ; amid 
the greatest accumulations of w^ealth, men die of starvation, 
and puny infants suckle dry breasts ; while everywhere the 
greed of gain, the worship of wealth, shows the force of the 
fear of want. The promised land flies before us like the 
mirage. The frtiits of the tree of knowledge turn as we grasp 
them to apples of Sodom that crumble at the touch. 

It is true that wealth has been greatly increased, and that 
the average of comfort, leisure, and refinement has been raised ; 
but these gains are not general. In them the lowest class do 
not share.* I do not mean that, the condition of the lowest 
class has nowhere nor in anything been improved ; but that 
there is nowhere any improvement which can be credited to 
increased productive power. I mean that the tendency of 
what we call material progress is in nowise to improve the 
condition of the lowest class in the essentials of healthy, 
happy human life. Nay, more, that it is to still further depress 
the condition of the lowest class. The new forces, elevating 
in their nature though they be, do not act upon the social 
fabric from underneath, as was for a long time hoped and be- 
lieved, but strike it at a point intermediate between top and 
bottom. It is as though an immense wedge w^ere being forced, 
not underneath society, but through society. Those who are 
above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are 
below are crushed down. 

This depressing effect is not generally realized, for it is 

* It is true that the pooreBt may now in certain ways enjoy what the richest a 
centi^ry ago could not have commanded, but this does not show improvemeiit of con- 
dition so long as the ability to obtain the necessaries of life is not increfised. The 
beggar in a great city may enjoy many things from which the backwoods farmer is de- 
barred, but that does not prove the condition of the city beggar better than Ijhat Qf the 
independent farmer. * • ' > ' 



1 2 INTRO D UCTOR Y. 

not apparent where there has long existed a class just able to 
live. Where the lowest class barely lives, as has been the 
case for a long time in many parts of Europe, it is impossible 
for it to get any lower, for the next lowest step is out of 
existence, and no tendency to further depression can readily 
show itself. But in the progress of new settlements to the 
conditions of older communities it may clearly be seen that 
material progress does not merely fail to relieve poverty — it 
actually produces it. In the United States it is clear that 
squalor and misery, and the vices and crimes that spring 
from them, everywhere increase as the village grows to the 
city, and the march of development brings the advantages 
of the improved methods of production and exchange. It is 
in the older and richer sections of the Union that pau- 
perism and distress among the working classes are becoming 
most painfully apparent. If there is less deep poverty in San 
Francisco than in New York, is it not because San Francisco 
is yet behind New York in all that both cities are striving 
for? When San Francisco reaches the point where New 
York now is, who can doubt that there will* also be ragged 
and barefooted children on her streets ? 

This association of poverty with progress is the great 
enigma of our times. It is the central fact from which spring 
industrial, social, and political difficulties that perplex the 
world, and with which statesmanship and philanthropy and 
education grapple in vain. From it come the clouds that 
overhang the future of the most progressive and self-reliant 
nations. It is the riddle which the Sphinx of Fate puts 
to our civilization, and which not to answer is to be destroyed. 
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress 
brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase 
luxury, and make sharper the contrast between the House of 
Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and 
cannot be permanent. The reaction must come. The 
tower leans from its foundations, and every new story but 
hastens the final catastrophe. To educate men who must be 
condemned to poverty, is but to make them restive ; to base 
on a state of most glaring social inequality political institu- 
tions under which men are theoretically equal, is to stand a 
pyramid on its apex. 

All-important as this question is, pressing itself from 
every '-quarter painfully upon attention, it has not yet 
received a solution which accounts for all the facts and 
points to any clear and simple remedy. This is shown b^ 



THE PROBLEM. 13 

the widely varying attempts to account for the prevailing 
depression. They exhibit not merely a divergence between 
vulgar notions and scientific theories, but also show that the 
concurrence which should exist between those who avow the 
same general theories breaks up upon practical questions 
into an anarchy of opinion. Upon high economic authority 
we have been told that the prevailing depression is due to 
over -consumption ; upon equally high authority, that it is due 
to over-production ; while the wastes of war, the extension of 
railroads, the attempts of workmen to keep up wages, the 
demonetization of silver, the issues of paper mone}^, the 
increase of labor-saving machinery, the opening of shorter 
avenues to trade, etc., etc., are separately pointed out as the 
cause, by writers of reputation. 

And while professors thus disagree, the ideas that there is 
a necessary conflict between capital and labor, that machinery 
is an evil, that competition must be restrained and interest 
abolished, that wealth may be created by the issue of money, 
that it is the duty of government to furnish capital or to 
furnish work, are rapidly making way among the great body 
of the people, who keenly feel a hurt and are sharply 
conscious of a wrong. Such ideas, which bring great masses 
of men, the repositories of ultimate political power, under 
the leadership of charlatans and demagogues, are fraught 
with danger ; but they cannot be successfully combated 
until political economy shall give some answer to the great 
question which shall be consistent with all her teachings, 
and which shall commend itself to the perceptions of 
the great masses of men. 

It must be within the province of political economy to give 
such an answer. For political economy is not a set of 
dogmas. It is the explanation of a certain set of facts. It 
is the science which, in the sequence of certain phenomena, 
seeks to trace mutual relations and to identify cause and 
effect, just as the physical sciences seek to do in other sets 
of phenomena. It lays its foundations upon firm ground. 
The premises from which it makes its deductions are truths 
which have the highest sanction ; axioms which we all 
recognize; upon which we safely base the reasoning and 
actions of every-day life, and which may be reduced to the 
metaphysical expression of the physical law that motion 
seeks the line of least resistance — viz., that men seek to 
gratify their desires with the least exertion. Proceeding 
from a basis thus assured, its processes, which consist 



14 INTRODUCTORY. 

simply in identification and separation, have the same cer- 
tainty. In this sense it is as exact a science as geometry, 
which, from similar truths relative to space, obtains its 
conclusions by similar means, and its conclusions when 
valid should be as self-apparent. And although in the 
domain of political economy we cannot test our theories by 
artificially produced combinations or conditions, as may be 
done in some of the other sciences, yet we can apply tests 
no less conclusive, by comparing societies in which different 
conditions exist, or by, in imagination, separating, combining, 
adding or eliminating forces or factors of known direction, 

I propose in the following pages to attempt to solve by the 
inethods of political economy the great problem I have 
outlined. I propose to seek the law which associates 
poverty with progress, and increases want' with advancing 
wealth ; and I believe in the explanation of this paradox we 
shall find the explanation of those recurring seasons of 
industrial and commercial paralysis which, viewed independ- 
ently ^f their relations to more general phenomena, seem so 
inexplicable. Properly commenced and carefully pursued, 
such an investigation must yield a conclusion that will stand 
every test, and as truth will correlate with all other truth. 
For in the sequence of phenomena there is no accident. 
Every effect has a cause, and every fact implies a preceding 
fact. 

That political economy, as at present taught, does not 
explain the persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth in a 
manner which accords with the deep-seated perceptions of 
men ; that the unquestionable truths which it does teach 
are unrelated and disjointed ; that it has failed to make the 
progress in popular thought that truth, even when unpleasant, 
must make ; that, on the contrary, after a century of culti- 
vation, during which it has engrossed the attention of some 
of the most subtle and powerful intellects, it should be 
spurned by the statesman, scouted by the masses, and 
relegated in the opinion of many educated and thinking men 
to the rank of a pseudo-science in which nothing is fixed or 
can be fixed — must, it seems to me, be due, not to any 
inability of the science when properly pursued, but to some 
false step in its premises, or overlooked factor in its estimates. 
And as such mistakes are generally concealed by the respect 
paid to authority, I propose in this inquiry to take nothing for 
granted, but to bring even accepted theories to the tebt o| 



THE PROBLEM. 



«S 



first principles, and should they not stand the test, to freshly 
interrogate facts in the endeavor to discover their law. 

I propose to beg no question, to shrink from no conclusion, 
but to follow truth wherever it may lead. Upon us is the 
responsibility of seeking the law, for in the very heart of our 
civilization to-day women faint and little children moan. 
But what that law may prove to be is not our affair. If the 
conclusions that we reach run counter to our prejudices, let 
us not flinch , if they challenge institutions that have long 
been deemed wise and natural, let us not turn back. 



BOOK I. 

WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

He that is to follow philosophy must be a freeman in mind. "Ptolemy. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CURRENT DOCTRINE OF WAGES — ITS INSUFFICIENCY. 

Reducing to its most compact form the problem we have 
set out to investigate, let us examine, step by step, the 
explanation which political economy, as now accepted by the 
best authority, gives of it. 

The cause which produces poverty in the midst of 
advancing wealth is evidently the cause which exhibits itself 
in the tendency, everywhere recognized, of wages to a mini- 
mum. Let us, therefore, put our inquiry into this compact 
form : 

Why, in spite of incj'ease in productive power ^ do wages tend 
to a minimum which will give but a bare living ? 

The answer of the current political economy is, that 
wages are fixed by the ratio between the number of laborers 
and the amount of capital devoted to the employment of 
labor, and constantly tend to the lowest amount on M^hich 
laborers will consent to live and reproduce, because the 
increase in the number of laborers tends naturally to follow 
and overtake any increase in capital. The increase of the 
divisor being thus held in check only by the possibilities of 
the quotient, the dividend may be increased to infinity 
without greater result. 

In current thought this doctrine holds all but undisputed 
sway. It bears the indorsement of the very highest names 
among the cultivators of political economy, and though there 
have been attacks upon it, they are generally more formal 



THE CURRENT DOCTRINE. ly 

than real.* It is assumed by Buckle as the basis of his 
generalizations of universal history. It is taught in all, or 
nearly all, the great English and American universities, and 
is laid down in text-books which aim at leading the masses to 
reason correctly upon practical affairs, while it seems to 
harmonize with the new philosopliy, which, having in a few 
years all but conquered the scientific world, is now rapidly 
permeating the general mind. 

Thus entrenched in the upper regions of thought, it is in 
cruder form even more firmly rooted in what may be styled 
the lower. What gives to the fallacies of protection such 
a tenacious hold, in spite of their evident inconsistencies 
and absurdities, is the idea that the sum to be distributed 
in wages is in each community a fixed one, which the com- 
petition of " foreign labor " must still further subdivide. 
The same idea underlies most of the theories which aim at 
the abolition of interest and the restriction of competi- 
tion, as the means whereby the share of the laborer in 
the general wealth can be increased ; and it crops out in 
every direction among those who are not thoughtful enough 
to have any theories, as may be seen in the columns of news- 
papers and the debates of legislative bodies. 

And yet, widely accepted and deeply rooted as it is, it 
seems to me that this theory does not tally with obvious 
facts. For, if wages depend upon the ratio between the 
amount of labor seeking employment and the amount of 
capital devoted to its employment, the relative scarcity or 
abundance of one factor must mean the relative abundance or 
scarcity of the other. Thus, capital must be relatively 
abundant where wages are high, and relatively scarce where 
wages are low. Now, as the capital used in paying wages 
must largely consist of the capital constantly seeking 
investment, the current rate of interest must be the measure 
of its relative abundance or scarcity. So, if it be true that 
wages depend upon the ratio between the amount of labor 
seeking employment and the capital devoted to its employ- 

* This seems to me true of Mr. Thornton's objections, for while he denies the 
existence of a predetermined wage fund, consisting of a portion of capital set apart 
for the purchase of labor, he yet holds (which is the essential thing) that wages are 
drawn from capital, and that increase or decrease of capital is increase or decrease of 
the fund available for the payment of wages. The most vital attack upon the wage 
fund doctrine, of which I know, is that of Professor Francis A. Walker (The Wages 
Question, New York, 1876), yet he admits that wages are in large part advanced 
from capital — which, so far as it goes, is all that the staunchest supporter of the 
wage fund theory could claim — while he fully accepts the Malthusian theory. Thus 
his practical conclusions in nowise differ from those reached by expounders of the 
current theory. 



iS l^VAGES AND CAPITAL. 

merit, then high wages (the mark of the relative scarcity 6i 
labor) must be accompanied by low interest (the mark of the 
relative abundance of capital), and reversely, low wages must 
be accompanied by high interest. 

This is not the fact, but the contrary. Eliminating from 
interest the element of insurance, and regarding only interest 
proper, or the return for the use of capital, is it not a general 
truth that interest is high where and when wages are high, 
and low where and when wages are low ? Both wages and 
interest have been higher in the United States than in Eng- 
land, in the Pacific than in the Atlantic States. Is it not a 
notorious fact that where labor flows for higher wages, capital 
also flows for higher interest ? Is it not true that wherever 
there has been a general rise or fall of wages there has been 
at the same time a similar rise or fall in interest.? In Cali- 
fornia, for instance, when wages were higher than anywhere 
else in the world, so also was interest higher. Wages and 
interest have in California gone down together. When com- 
mon wages were $5 a day, the ordinary bank rate of interest 
was twenty-four per cent, per annum. Now that common 
wages are $2 or $2.50 a day, the ordinary bank rate is from 
ten to twelve per cent. 

Now, this broad, general fact, that wages are higher in new 
countries, where capital is relatively scarce, than in old coun- 
tries, where capital is relatively abundant, is too glaring to be 
ignored. And although very lightly touched upon, it is 
noticed by the expounders of the current political economy. 
The manner in which it is noticed proves what I say, that it 
is utterly inconsistent with the accepted theory of wages. 
For in explaining it such writers as Mill, Fawcett, and Price 
virtually give up the theory of wages upon which, in the same 
treatises, they formally insist. Though they declare that 
wages are fixed by the ratio between capital and laborers, 
they explain the higher wages and interest of new countries 
by the greater relative production of wealth. I shall here- 
after show that this is not the fact, but that, on the contrary, 
the production of wealth is relatively larger in old and densely 
populated countries than in new and sparsely populated 
countries. But at present I merely wish to point out the 
inconsistency. For to say that the higher wages of new coun- 
tries are due to greater proportionate production, is clearly to 
make the ratio with production, and not the ratio with capital, 
the determinator of wages. 

Though this inconsistency does not seem to have been 



THE CURRENT DOCTEIN'E, 15 

petceiyed by the class of writers to whom I alludn. it has been 
noticed by one of the most logical of the expounders of the 
current political economy. Professor Cairnes* endeavors in 
a very ingenious way to reconcile the fact with the theory, by 
assuming that in new countries, wliere industry is generally 
directed to the production of food and what in manufactures 
is called raw material, a much larger j^roportion of the capital 
used in production is devoted to the payment of wages than 
in older countries where a greater part must be expended in 
machinery and material, and thus, in the new country, though 
capital is scarcer (and interest is higher), the amount deter- 
mined to the payment of wages is really larger, and wages are 
also higher. For instance, of $ 1 00,000 devoted in an old coun- 
try to manufactures, $80,000 would probably be expended for 
buildings, machinery and the purchase of materials, leaving 
but $20,000 to b« paid out in wages, whereas in a new coun- 
try, of $30,000 devoted to agriculture, etc., not more than 
$5,000 would be required for tools, etc., leaving $25,000 to 
be distributed in wages. In this way it is explained that the 
wage fund may be comparatively large where capital is com- 
paratively scarce, and high wages and high interest accom- 
pany each other. 

In what follows I think I shall be able to show that this 
explanation is based upon a total misapprehension of the 
relations of labor to capital — a fundamental error as to the 
fund from which wages are drawn ; but at the present it is 
only necessary to point out that the connection in the fluctua- 
tion of wages and interest in the same countries and in the 
same branches of industry cannot thus be explained. In 
those alternations known as "good times" and "hard times" 
a brisk demand for labor and good wages is always accom- 
panied by a brisk demand for capital and stiff rates of inter- 
est. While, when laborers cannot find employment and 
wages droop, there is always an accumulation of capital seek- 
ing investment at low rates.f The present depression has 
been no less marked by want of employment and distress 
among the working classes than by the accumulation of 
unemployed capital in all the great centers, and by nominal 
rates of interest on undoubted security. Thus, under condi- 
tions which admit of no explanation consistent with the 

* Some Leading- Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded, Chapter i, 
Part a. 

t Times of commercial panic are marked by high rates of discount, but this is 
evidently not a high rate ol interest, properly so«aUed, but a high rate of iasuraace 
against risk. - 



20 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

current theory, do we find high interest coinciding with high 
wages and low interest with low wages — capital seemingly 
scarce when labor is scarce, and abundant when labor is 
abundant. 

All these well known facts, which coincide with each other, 
point to a relation between wages and interest, but it is to a 
relation of conjunction not of opposition. Evidently they are 
utterly inconsistent with the theory that wages are determined 
by the ratio between labor and capital, or any part of capital. 

How, then it will be asked, could such a theory arise ? 
How is it that it has been accepted by a succession of econ- 
omists, from the time of Adam Smith to the present day ? 

If we examine the reasoning by which in current treatises 
this theory of wages is supported, we see at once that it is 
not an induction from observed facts, but a deduction from a 
previously assumed theory — viz., that wages are drawn from 
capital. It being assumed that capital is the source of wages, 
it necessarily follows that the gross amount of wages must be 
limited by the amount of capital devoted to the employment 
of labor, and hence that the amount individual laborers can 
receive, must be determined by the ratio between their 
number and the amount of capital existing for their recora- 
pensvj.* This reasoning is valid, but the conclusion, as we 
have seen, does not correspond with the facts. The fault, 
therefore, must be in the premises. Let us see. 

I am aware that the theorem that wages are drawn from 
capital is one of the most fundamental and apparently best 
settled of current political economy, and that it has been 
accepted as axiomatic by all the great thinkers who have 
devoted their powers to the elucidation of the science. 
Nevertheless, I think it can be demonstrated to be a funda- 
mental error — the fruitful parent of a long series of errors, 
which vitiate most important practical conclusions. This 
demonstration I am about to attempt. It is necessary that 
it should be clear and conclusive, for a doctrine upon which 
so much important reasoning is based, which is supported by 
such a weight of author! t)^, which is so plausible in itself, and 
is so liable to recur in different forms, cannot be safely 
brushed aside in a paragraph. 

* For instance, McCulloch (Note VI to Wealth of Nations) says : "That portion of 
the capital or wealth of a country which the employers of labor intend to or are 
willing to pay out in the purchase of labor, may be much larger at one time than 
another. But whatever may be its absolute magnitude, it obviously forms the only 
source from which any portion of the wages of labor can be derived. No other 
fund is in existence from which the laborer, as such, can draw a single shilling'. 
And hence it foUo'ws that the average rate of wages, or the share of the national 



THE CURRENT DOCTRINE. 21 

The proposition I shall endeavor to prove, is : 
That wages ^ instead of being drawn from capital^ are in real- 
ity drawn from the product of the labor for which they an 
paid. * 

Now, inasmuch as the current theory that wages are drawn 
from capital also holds that capital is reimbursed from pro- 
duction, this at first glance may seem a distinction without a 
difference — a mere change in terminology, to discuss which 
would be but to add to those unprofitable disputes that 
render so much that has been written upon politico-economic 
subjects as barren and worthless as the controversies of the 
various learned societies about the true reading of the inscrip- 
tion on the stone that Mr. Pickwick found. But that it is 
much more than a formal distinction will be apparent when 
it is considered that upon the difference between the two 
propositions are built up all the current theories as to the 
relations of capital and labor ; that from, it are deduced doc- 
trines that, themseh^es regarded as axiomatic, bound, direct, 
and govern the ablest minds in the discussion of the most 
momentous questions. For, upon the assumption that wages 
are drawn directly from capital, and not from the product of 
the labor, is based, not only the doctrine that wages depend 
upon the ratio between capital and labor, but the doctrine 
that industry is limited by capital — that capital must be 
accumulated before labor is employed, and labor cannot be 
employed except as capital is accumulated ; the doctrine that 
every increase of capital gives or is capable of giving addi- 
"^ional employment to industry ; the doctrine that the conver- 
sion of circulating capital into fixed capital lessens the fund 
applicable to the maintenance of labor; the doctrine that 
more laborers can be employed at low than at high wages; 
the doctrine that capital applied to agriculture will maintain 
more laborers than if applied to manufactures ; the doctrine 
that profits are high or low as wages are low or high, or that 
they depend upon the cost of the subsistence of laborers ; 
together with such paradoxes as that a demand for commodi- 
ties is not a demand for labor, or that certain commodities 
may be increased in cost by a reduction in wages or dimin- 
ished in cost by an increase in wages. 

capital appropriated to the employment of labor falling-, at an average, to each 
laborer must entirely depend on its amount as compared with the number of those 
among-st whom it has to be divided." Similar citations might be made from all the 
standard economists. 

* We a.re speaking of labor expended in production, to which it is best for the 
sake of simplicity to confine the inquiry. Any question which may arise in the read- 
er's mind as to wages for unproductive services had best therefore be deferred. 



22 WAGES' AND CAPITAL. 

In short, all the teachings of the current political economy, 
in the widest and most important part of its domain, are based 
more or less directly upon the assumption that labor is main- 
tained and paid out of existing capital before the product 
which constitutes the ultimate object is secured. If it be 
shown that this is an error, and that on the contrary the main- 
tenance and payment of labor do not even temporarily trench 
on capital, but are directly drawn frOm the product of the 
labor, then all this vast superstructure is left without support 
and must fall. And so likewise must fall the vulgar theories 
which also have their base in the belief that the sum to be 
distributed in wages is a fixed one, the individual shares in 
which must be necessarily decreased by an increase in the 
number of laborers. 

The difference between the current theory and the one 1 
advance is, in fact, similar to that between the mercantile the- 
ory of international exchanges and that with which Adam 
Smith supplanted it. Between the theory that commerce is 
the exchange of commodities for money, and the theory that 
it is the exchange of commodities for commodities, there may 
seem no real difference when it is remembered that the adhe- 
rents of the mercantile theory did not assume that money had 
a.ny other use than as it could be exchanged for commodities. 
Yet, in the practical application of these two theories, there 
arises all the difference between rigid governmental protection 
and free trade. 

If I have said enough to show the reader the ultimate im- 
portance of the reasoning through which I am about to ask 
him to follow me, it will not be necessary to apologize in ad^ 
vance either for simplicity or prolixity. In arraigning a doc^ 
trine of such importance — a doctrine supported by such a 
weight of authority, it is necessary to be both clear and thor- 
ough. 

Were it not for this I should be tempted to dismiss with a 
sentence the assumption that wages are drawn from capital. 
For all the vast superstructure which the current political econ 
omy builds upon this doctrine, is in truth based upon a foun- 
dation which has been merely taken for granted, without the 
slightest attempt to distinguish the apparent from the real. 
Because wages are generally paid in money, and in many of the 
operations of production are paid before the product is fully 
completed, or can be utilized, it is inferred that wages are 
drawn from pre-existing capital, and, therefore, that industry 
is limited by capital— that is to say that labor cannot be em- 



THE CURRENT DOCTRINE. 23 

ployed until capital has been accumulated, and can only be 
employed to the extent capital has been accumulated. 

Yet in the very treatises in which the limitation of industry 
by capital is laid down without reservation and made the basis 
for the most important reasonings and elaborate theories, we 
are told that capital is stored up or accumulated labor — " that 
part of wealth which is saved to assist future production." If 
we substitute for the word " capital " this definition of the 
word, the proposition carries its own refutation, that labor can- 
not be employed until the results of labor are saved becomes 
too absurd for discussion. 

Should we, however, with this reducfio ad ahsiirdum. attempt 
to close the argument, we should probably be met with the 
explanation, not that the first laborers were supplied by Prov- 
idence with the capital necessary to set them to work, but that 
the proposition merely refers to a state of society in which pro- 
duction has become a complex operation. 

But the fundamental truth, that in all economic reasoning 
must be firmly grasped and never let go, is that society in its 
most highly developed form is but an elaboration of society in 
its rudest beginnings, and that principles obvious in the sim- 
pler relations of men are merely disguised and not abrogated 
or reversed by tl^e more intricate relations that result from the 
division of labor and the use of complex tools and methods. 
The steam grist mill, with its comphcated machinery exhibit- 
ing every diversity of motion, is simply what the rude stone 
mortar dug up from an ancient river bed was in its day — an 
instrument for grinding corn. And every man engaged in it, 
whether tossing wood into the furnace, running the engine, 
dressing stones, printing sacks or keeping books, is really 
devoting his labor to the same purpose that the pre-historic 
savage did when he used his mortar-^the preparation of grain 
for human food. 

And so, if we reduce to their lowest terms all the complex 
operations of modem production, we see that each individual 
who takes part in this infinitely subdivided and intricate net- 
work of production and exchange is really doing what the 
primeval man did when he climbed the trees for fruit or fol- 
lowed the receding tide for shellfish^^endeavoring to obtain 
from nature by the exertion of his powers the satisfaction of 
his desires. If we keep this firmly in mind, if we look upon 
production as a whole — as the co-operation of all embraced in 
any of its great groups to satisfy the various desires of each, 
we plainly see that the reward each obtains for his exertions 



24 WAGES AND CAPITAL^ 

comes as truly and as directly from nature as the result o} 
that exertion, as did that of the first man. 

To illustrate : In the simplest state of which we can con- 
ceive, each man digs his own bait and catches his own fish. 
The advantages of the division of labor soon becomes appar- 
ent, and one digs bait while the others fish. Yet evidently 
the one who digs bait is in reality doing as much toward the 
catching of fish as any of those who actually take the fish. So 
when the advantages of canoes are discovered, and instead of 
all going 3-fishing, one stays behind and makes and repairs 
canoes, the canoe-maker is in reality devoting his labor to the 
taking of fish as much as the actual fishermen, and the fish 
which he eats at night when the fishermen come home, are as 
truly the product of his labor as of theirs. And thus when the 
division of labor is fairly inaugurated, and instead of each 
attempting to satisfy all of his wants by direct resort to nature, 
one fishes, another hunts, a third picks berries, a fourth gathers 
fruit, a fifth makes tools, a sixth builds huts, and a seventh 
prepares clothing — each one is, to the extent he exchanges 
the direct product of his own labor for the direct product of 
the labor of others, really applying his own labor to the pro- 
duction of the things he uses — is in effect satisfying his par- 
ticular desires by the exertion of his particular powers ; that 
is to say, what he receives he in reality produces. If he digs 
roots and exchanges them for venison, he is in effect as truly 
the procurer of the venison as though he had gone, in chase 
of the deer and left the huntsman to dig his own roots. The 
common expression, " I made so and so," signifying " I earned 
so and so," or " I earned money with which I purchased so 
and so," is, economically speaking, not metaphorically but 
literally true. " Earning is making. 

Now if we follow these principles, obvious enough in a 
simpler state of society, through the complexities of the 
state we call civilized, we shall see clearly that in every case 
in which labor is exchanged for commodities, production 
really precedes enjoyment ; that wages are the earnings — ■ 
that is to say, the makings of labor — not the advances of 
capital, and that the laborer who receives his wages in 
money (coined or printed, it may be, before his labor com- 
menced) really receives in return for the addition his labor 
has made to the general stock of wealth, a draft upon that 
general stock, which he may utilize in any particular form of 
wealth that will best satisfy his desires ; and that neither the 
money, which is but the draft, nor the particular form of 



THE CURRENT DOCTRINE. 25 

wealth which he uses it to call for, represents advances of 
capital for his maintenance, but on the contrary represents 
the wealth, or a portion of the wealth, his labor has already 
added to the general stock. 

Keeping these principles in view we see that the draughts- 
man, who, shut up in some dingy office on the banks of the 
Thames, is drawing the plans for a great marine engine, is in 
reality devoting his labor to the production of bread and 
meat as truly as though he were garnering the grain in Cal- 
ifornia or swinging a lariat on a La Plata pampa : that he is 
as truly making his own clothing as though he were shearing 
sheep in Australia or weaving cloth in Paisley, and just as 
effectually producing the claret he drinks at dinner as though 
he gathered the grapes on the banks of the Garonne. The 
miner who, two thousand feet under ground in the heart of 
the Comstock, is digging out silver ore, is in effect, by virtue 
of a thousand exchanges, harvesting crops in valleys five 
thousand feet nearer the earth's center ; chasing the whale 
through Arctic icefields ; plucking tobacco leaves in Virginia ; 
picking coffee berries in Honduras : cutting sugar cane on the 
Hawaiian Islands ; gathering cotton in Georgia or weaving it 
in Manchester or Lowell ; making quaint wooden toys for his 
children in the Hartz Mountains ; or plucking amid the green 
and gold of Los Angeles orchards the oranges which, when 
his shift is relieved, he will take home to his sick wife. The 
wages which he receives on Saturday night at the mouth of 
the shaft, what are they but the certificate to all the world 
that he has done these things — the primary exchange in the 
long series which transmutes his labor into the things he has 
really been laboring for ? 

All this is clear when looked at in this way ; but to meet 
this fallacy in all its strongholds and lurking places we must 
change our investigation from the deductive to the inductive 
form. Let us now see, if, beginning with facts and tracing 
their relations, we arrive at the same conclusions as are 
thus obvious when, beginning with first principles, we trace 
their exemplification in complex facts. 



CHAPTER n. 

THE MEANING OF THE TERMS. 

Before proceeding further in our inquiry, let us make sure 
of the meaning of our terms, for indistinctness in their use 
must inevitably produce ambiguity and indeterminateness m 



26 WAGES 4A^D CAPITAL. 

reasoning. Not only is it requisite in economic reasoning to 
give to such words as "wealth," " capital," " rent," "wages," 
and the like, a much more definite sense than they bear in 
common discourse, but, unfortunately, even in political 
economy there is, as to some of these terms, no certain 
meaning assigned by common consent, different writers 
giving to the same term different meanings, and the same 
writers often using a term in different senses. Nothing can 
add to the force of what has been said by so many eminent 
authors as to the importance of clear and precise definitions, 
save the example (not an infrequent one) of the same authors 
falling mto grave errors from the very cause they warned 
against And nothing so shows the importance of language 
in thought as the spectacle of even acute thinkers basing 
important conclusions upon the use of the same word in 
varying senses. I shall endeavor to avoid these dangers. It 
will be my effort throughout, as any term becomes of 
importance, to clearly state what I mean by it, and to use it 
in that sense and in no other. Let m« ask the reader to note 
and to bear in mind the definitions thus given, as otherwise I 
cannot hope to make myself properly understood. I shall 
not attempt to attach arbitrary meanings to my words, or to 
coin terms, even when it would be convenient to do so, but 
shall conform to usage as closely as is possible, only 
endeavoring to so fix the meaning of words that they may 
clearly express thought. 

What we have now on hand is to discover whether, as a 
matter of fact, wages are drawn from capital. As a prelim- 
inary, let ns settle what we mean by wages and what we mean 
by capital. To the former word a sufficiently definite 
meaning has been given by economic writers, but the 
ambiguities which have attached to the use of the latter in 
political economy will require a detailed examination. 

As used in common discourse " wages" means a compen- 
sation paid to a hired person for his services ; aad we speak 
of one man " working for wages," in contradistinction to 
another who is "working for himself." The use of the term 
is still further narrowed by the habit of applying it solely to 
compensation paid for manual labor. We do not speak of 
the wages of professional men, managers or clerks, but of 
their fees, commissions, or salaries. Thus the common 
meaning of the word wages is the compensation paid to a 
hired person for manual labor. But in political economy the 
word wages has a much wider meaning, and includes aU 



THE MEANING OF THE TERMS. itf 

returns for exertion. For,, as political economists explain, 
the three agents or factors in production are land, labor, and 
capital, and that part of the produce which goes to the 
second of these factors is styled by them wages. 

Thus the term labor includes all human exertion in the 
production of wealth, and wages, being that part of the 
produce which goes to labor, includes all reward for such 
exertion. There is, therefore, in the politico-economic sense 
of the term wages no distinction as to the kind of labor, or 
as to whether its reward is received through an employer or 
not, but wages means the return received for the exer- 
tion of labor, as distinguished from the return received 
for the use of capital, and the return received by the land- 
holder for the use of land. The man who cultivates the soil 
for himself receives his wages in its produce, just as, if he 
uses his own capital and owns his own land, he may also 
receive interest and rent ; the hunter's wages are the game he 
kills ; the fisherman's wages are the fish he takes. The gold 
washed out by the self-employing gold-digger is as much his 
wages as the money paid to the hired coal miner by the 
purchaser of his labor,"* and, as Adam Smith shows, the 
high profits of retail storekeepers, are in large part wages, 
being the recompense of their labor and not of their capital. 
In short, whatever is received as the result or reward of 
exertion is " wages." 

This is all it is now necessary to note as to " wages," but it 
is important to keep this in mind. For in the standard eco- 
nomic works this sense of the term wages is recognized with 
greater or less clearness only to be subsequently ignored. 

But it is more difficult to clear away from the idea of capi- 
tal the ambiguities that beset it, and to fix the scientific use 
of the term. In general discourse, all sorts of things that 
have a value or will yield a return are vaguely spoken of as 
capital, while economic writers vary so widely that the term 
can hardly be said to have a fixed meaning. Let us compare 
with each other the definitions of a few representative Avriters : 

"That part of a man's stock," says Adam Smith (Book II, 
Chap. I), "^ which he expects to aiford him a revenue, is called 
his capital," and the capital of a country or society, he goes 
on to say, consists of (i) machines and instruments of trade 
which facilitate and abridge labor ; (2) buildings, not mere 

^^^aI^}^^-^^^ recognized in common speech in California, where the placer miners 
styled their earnmgs their ''wages," and spoke of making high wages or low 
wages, according to the amount of gold taken out w^gci,, or low 



28 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

dwellings, but which may be considered instruments of trade 
— such as shops, farmhouses, etc. ; (3) improvements of land 
which better fit it fortillage or culture ; (4) the acquired and 
useful abilities of all the inhabitants ; (5) money ; (6) provis- 
ions in the hands of producers and dealers, from the sale of 
which they expect to derive a profit ; (7) the material of, or 
partially comj^leted, manufactured articles still in the hands 
of producers or dealers ; (8) completed articles still in the 
hands of producers or dealers. The first four of these he 
styles fixed capital, and the last four circulating capital, a dis- 
tinction of which it is not necessary to our purpose to take 
any note. 

Ricardo's definition is : - 

_ "Capital is that part of the wealth of a country which is employed in produc- 
tion, and consists of food, clothing-, tools, raw materials, machinery, etc., neces- 
sary to give effect to labor." — Principles of Political Econo77ty^ Chapter V. 

This definition, it will be seen, is very different from that 
of Adam Smith, as it excludes many of the things which he 
includes — as acquired talents, articles of m.ere taste or luxury 
in the possession of producers or dealers ; and includes some 
things he excludes — such as food, clothing, etc., in the posses- 
sion of the consumer. * 

McCulloch's definition is : 

" The capital of a nation really comprises all those portions of the produce of 
industry existing in it that may be directly employed either to support human 
existence or to facilitate production." — Notes on Wealth of Nations^ Book 11^ 
Chap. I. 

This definition follows the line of Ricardo's, but is wider. 
While it excludes everything that is not capable of aiding pro- 
duction, it includes everything that is so capable, without ref- 
erence to actual use or necessity for use — the horse drawing 
a pleasure carriage being, according to McCulloch's view, as 
he expressly states, as much capital as the horse drawing a 
plow, because he may, if need arises, be used to draw a plow. 

John Stuart Mill, following the same general line as Ricar- 
do and McCulloch, makes neither the use nor the capability 
of use, but the determination to use, the test of capital. He 
says : 

" Whatever things^re destined to supply productive labor with the shelter, 
protection, tools and mSerials which the work requires, and to feed and otherwise 
maintain the laborer during the process, are capital." — Prijiciples of Political 
EconoDiy ^ Book /, Chap. IV. 

These quotations sufficiently illustrate the divergence of 
the masters. Among minor authors the variance is still 
greater, as a few examples will suffice to show. 

Professor Wayland, whose " Elements of Political Economy" 



THE MEANING OE THE TERMS. 29 

has long been a favorite text book in American educational 
institutions, where there has been any pretense of teaching 
jDolitical economy gives this lucid definition : 

" The word capital is used in two senses. In relation to product it means 
any substance on which industry is to be exerted. In relation to industry, the 
material on which industry is about to coi^ifer value, that on which it has con- 
ferred value ; the instruments v/hich are used for the conferring of value, as 
well as the means of sustenance by ^Yhich the being is supported while he is 
eno"aged in performing the operation." — Elements of Political Econo7ny^ Book I. 
Chap. I. . 

Henry C. Carey, the American apostle of protectionism, 
defines capital as "the instrument by which man obtains mas- 
tery over nature, including in it the physical and mental 
powers of man himself." Professor Perry, a Massachusetts 
free trader, very properly objects to this that it hopelessly 
confuses the boundaries between capital and labor, and then 
himself hopelessly confuses the boundaries between capital 
and land by defining capital as " any valuable thing outside 
of man himself from whose use springs a pecuniary increase 
or profit." An English economic .writer of high standing, 
Mr. Wm. Thornton, begins an elaborate examination of the 
relations of labor and capital (" On Labor") by stating that 
he will include land with capital, which is very much as if one 
who proposed to teach algebra should begin with the declara- 
tion that he would consider the signs plus and minus as mean- 
ing the same thing and having the same value. An American 
writer, also of high standing, Professor Francis A. Walker, 
makes the same declaration in his elaborate book on " The 
Wages Question." Another English writer, N. A. Nicholson 
("The Science of Exchanges," London, 1873), seems to cap 
the climax of absurdity by declaring in one paragraph (p. 26) 
that " capital must of course be accumulated by saving," and 
in the very next paragraph stating that " the land which pro- 
duces a crop, the plow which turns the soil, the labor which 
secures the produce, and the produce itself, if a material 
profit is to be derived from its employment, are all alike cap- 
ital. But how land and labor are to be accumulated by sav- 
ing them he nowhere condescends to explain. In the sam.e 
way a standard American writer, Professor Am.asa Walker (p„ 
66, " Science of Wealth,") first declares that capital arises 
from the net savings of labor and then immediately afterward 
declares that land is capital. 

_ I might go on for pages, citing contradictory and self-contra- 
dictory definitions. But it would only weary the reader. It 
is unnecessary to multiply quotations. Those already given 
are sufficient to show how wide a difference exists as to the 



3° 



WAGES AND CAPITAL. 



comprehension of the term capital. Any one who wants fur- 
ther illustration of the " confusion worse confounded " which 
exists on this subject among the prof essors of political econ- 
omy may find it in any library where the works of these pro- 
fessors are ranged side by side. 

Now, it makes little difference what name we give to things, 
if when we use the name we always keep in view the same 
things and no others. But the difficulty arising in economic 
reasoning from these vague and var3dng definitions of capital 
is that it is only in the premises of reasoning that the term is 
used in the peculiar sense assigned by the definition, while in 
the practical conclusions that are reached it is always used, 
or at least it is always understood, in one general and definite 
sense. When, for instance, it is said that wages are drawn 
from capital, the word capital is understood in the same sense 
as when we speak of the scarcity or abundance, the increase 
or decrease, the destruction or increment, of capital — a com- 
monly understood and definite sense which separates capital 
from the other factors of production, land and labor, and also 
separates it from like things used merely for gratification. 
In fact, most people understand well enough what capital is 
until they begin to define it, and I think their works will show 
that the economic writers who differ so widely in their defini- 
tions use the term in this commonly understood sense in all 
cases except in their definitions and the reasoning based on 
them. 

This common sense of the term is that of wealth devoted 
to procuring more wealth. Dr. Adam Smith correctly ex- 
presses this common idea when he says : " That part of a 
man's stock which he expects to afford him revenue is called 
his capital." And the capital of a community is evidently 
the sum of such individual stocks, or that part of the aggre- 
gate stock which is expected to procure more wealth. This 
also is the derivative sense of the term. The word capital, 
as philologists trace it, comes down to us from a time when 
wealth was estimated in cattle, and a man's income depended 
upon the number of head he could keep for their increase. 

The difficulties which beset the use of the word capital, as 
an exact term, and, which are even more strikingly exempli- 
fied in current political and social discussions than in the 
definitions of economic writers, arise from two facts — first, 
that certain classes of things, the possession of which to the 
individual is precisely equivalent to the possession of capital, 
are not part of the capital of the community ; and, second, 



THE AIEAAVNG OF THE TERMS. 



31 



that things of the same kind may or may not be capital, 
according to the purpose to which they are devoted. 

With a Httle care as to these points, there should be no 
difficulty in obtaining a sufficiently clear and fixed idea of 
what the term capital as generally used properly includes ; 
such an idea as will enable us to say what things are capital 
and what are not, and to use the word without ambiguity or 
slip. 

Land, labor, and capital are the three factors of produc- 
tion. If we remember that capital is thus a term used in con- 
tradistinction to land and labor, we at once see that nothing 
properly included under either one of these terms can be 
properly classed as capital. The term land necessarily 
includes, not merely the surface of the earth as distinguished 
from the water and the air, but the whole material universe 
outside of man himself, for it is only by having access to 
landj from which his very body is drawn, that man can come 
in contact with or use nature. The term land embraces, in 
short, all natural materials, forces, and opportunities, and, 
therefore, nothing that is freely supplied by nature can be 
properly classed as capital A fertile field, a rich vein of ore, 
a falling stream which supplies power, may give to the pos- 
sessor advantages equivalent to the possession of capital, but 
to class such things as capital would be to put an end to the 
distinction between land and capital, and, so far as they relate 
to each other, to make the two terms meaningless. The term 
labor, in like manner, includes all human exertion, and hence 
human powers whether natural or acquired can never prop 
erly be classed as capital. In common parlance we ofter 
speak of a man's knowledge, skill, or industry as constituting 
his capital ; but this is evidently a metaphorical use of Ian- 
guage that must be eschewed in reasoning that aims at exact- 
ness. Superiority in such qualities may augment the income 
of an individual just as capital would, and an increase in the 
knowledge, skill, or industry of a community may have the 
same effect in increasing its production as would an increase 
of capital ; but this effect is due to the increased power of 
labor and not to capital. Increased velocity may give to the 
impact of a cannon ball the same effect as increased weight, 
yet, nevertheless, weight is one thing and velocity another. 

Thus we must exclude from the category of capital every- 
thing that may be included either as land or labor. Doing so, 
there remain only things which are neither land nor labor, 
but which have resulted from the union of these two orieinal 



32 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

factors ot production. Nothing can be proper jy capital that 
does not consist of these — that is to say, nothing can be cap- 
ital that is not wealth. 

But it is from ambiguities in the use of this inclusive term 
wealth that many of the ambiguities which beset the term 
capital are derived. 

As commonly used the word " wealth " is applied to any- 
thing having an exchange value. But when used as a term 
of political economy it must be limited to a much more defi- 
nite meaning, because many things are commonly spoken of 
as wealth which in taking account of collective or general 
wealth cannot be considered as v-zealth at all Such thinjrs 
have an exchange value, and are commonly spoken of as v/ealth, 
insomuch as they represent as between individuals, or 
between sets of individuals, the power of obtaining wealth ; 
but they are not truly wealth, inasmuch as their increase or 
decrease does not affect the sum of wealth. Such are bonds, 
mortgages, promissory notes, bank bills, or other stipulations 
for the transfer of wealth. Such are slaves, whose value rep- 
resents merely the power of one class to appropriate the 
earnings of another class. Such are lands, or other natural 
opportunities, the value of which is but the result of the 
acknowledgement in favor of certain persons of an exclusive 
right to their use, and which represents merely the power 
thus given to the owners to demand a share of the wealth 
produced by those who use them. Increase in the amount of 
bonds, mortgages, notes, or bank bills cannot increase the 
wealth of the community that includes as well those who 
promise to pay as those who are entitled to receive. The 
enslavement of a part of their number could not increase the 
wealth of a people, for what the enslavers gained the enslaved 
would lose. Increase in land values does not represent 
increase in the common wealth, for what land owners gain by 
higher prices, the tenants or purchasers who must pay them 
will lose. And all this relative wealth, which, in common 
thought and speech, in legislation and law, is undistinguished 
from actual wealth, could, without the destruction or con- 
sumption of anything more than a few drops of ink and a 
piece of paper, be utterly annihilated. By enactment of the 
sovereign i3olitical power debts might be canceled, slaves 
emancipated, and land resumed as the common property of 
the whole people, without the aggregate wealth being dimin- 
ished by the value of a pinch of snuff, for what som.e would 
lose others vv^ould gain. There would be no more destruction 



THE MEANING OF THE TERMS. , yi^ 

of wealth than there was creation of wealth Avhen Elizabeth 
Tudor enriched her favorite courtiers by the grant of monopo- 
lies, or when Boris Godoonof made Russian peasants mer- 
chantable property. 

All things which have an exchange value are, therefore 
not wealth, in the only sense in which the term can be used 
in political economy. Only such things can be wealth the 
production of which increases and the destruction of which 
decreases the aggregate of wealth. If we consider what these 
things are, and what their nature is, we shall have no difficulty 
in defining wealth. 

When we speak of a community increasing in wealth — as 
when we say that England has increased in wealth since the 
accession of Victoria, or that California is a wealthier country 
than when it was a Mexican territory — we do not mean to say 
that there is more land, or that the natural powers of the 
land are greater, or that there are more people (for when we 
wish to express that idea we speak of increase of population,) 
or that the debts or dues owing by some of these people to 
others of their number have increased ; but we mean that 
there is an increase of certain tangible things, having an 
actual and not merely a relative value — such as buildings, 
cattle, tools, machinery, agricultural and mineral products, 
manufactured goods, ships, wagons, furniture and the like. 
The increase of such things constitutes an increase of wealth \ 
their decrease is a lessening of wealth ; and the community 
that, in proportion to its numbers, has most of such things is 
the wealthiest community. The common character of these 
things is that they consist of natural substances or products 
which have been adapted by human labor to human use or 
gratification, their value depending on the amount of labor 
which upon the average would be required to produce things 
of like kind. 

Thus wealth, as alone the term can be used in political 
economy, consists of natural products that have been 
secured, moved, combined, separated, or in other ways modi- 
fied by human exertion, so as to fit them for the gratification 
of human desires. It is, in other words, labor impressed 
upon matter in such a way as to store up, as the heat of the 
sun is stored up in coal, the pov/er of human labor to minister 
to human desires. Wealth is not the sole object of labor, 
for labor is also expended in ministering directly to desire ; 
but it is the object and result of what we call productive 
labor — that is, labor which gives value to material things. 
3 



34 WAGES AND JAPITAL. 

Nothing which nature supplies to man without his laboi is 
wealth, nor yet does the expenditure of labor result in wealth 
unless there is a tangible product which has and retains the 
power of ministering to desire. 

Now, as capital is wealth devoted to a certain purpose, 
nothing can be capital which does not not fall within this 
definition of wealth. By recognizing and keeping this 
in mind, we get rid of misconceptions which vitiate 
all reasoning in which they are permitted, which befog 
popular thought, and have led into mazes of contradiction 
even acute thinkers. 

But though all capital is wealth, all wealth is not capital. 
Capital is only a part of wealth — that part, namely, which is 
devoted to the aid of production. It is in drawing this 
line between the wealth that is and the wealth that is not 
capital that a second class of misconceptions are likely to 
occur. 

The errors which I have been pointing out, and which 
consist in confounding with wealth and capital things 
essentially distinct, or which have but a relative existence, 
are now merely vulgar errors. They are widespread, it is 
true, and have a deep root, being held, not merely by the 
less educated classes, but, seemingly, by a large majority of 
those who in such advanced countries as England and the 
United States mould and guide public opinion, make the laws 
in Parliaments, Congresses and Legislatures, and administer 
them in the courts. They crop out, moreover, in the dis- 
quisitions of many of those flabby writers who have burdened 
the press and darkened counsel by numerous volumes which 
are dubbed political economy, and which pass as text-books 
with the ignorant and as authority with those who do not 
think for themselves. Nevertheless, they are only vulgar 
errors, inasmuch as they receive no countenance from the 
best writers on political economy. By one of those lapses 
which flaw his great work, and strikingly evince the imper- 
fections of the highest talent, Adam Smith counts as capital 
certain personal qualities, an inclusion which is not consistent 
with his original definition of capital as stock from which 
revenue is expected. But this error has been avoided by his 
most eminent successors, and in the definitions (previously 
given) of Ricardo, McCulloch, and Mill, it is not involved. 
Neither in their definitions, nor in that of Smith, is involved 
'}l^ vulgar error which confounds as real capital things which 
are only relatively capital, such as evidences of debt, land 



THE MEANING OF THE TERMS 35 

values, etc. But as to things which are really wealth, their 
definitions differ from each other, and widely from that of 
Smith, as to what is and what is not to be considered as 
capital. The stock of a jeweler would, for instance, be 
included as capital by the definition of Smith, and the food 
or clothing in possession of a laborer would be excluded. 
But the definitions of Ricardo and McCulloch would exclude 
the stock of the jeweler, as would also that of Mill, if under- 
stood as most persons would understand the words I have 
quoted. But, as explained by him, it is neither the nature 
nor the destination of the things themselves which determines 
whether, they are or are not capital, but the intention of the 
owner to devote either the things or the value received from 
their sale to the supply of productive labor with tools, 
materials, and maintenance. AH these definitions, however, 
agree in including as capital the provisions and clothing of 
the laborer, which Smith excludes. 

Let us consider these three definitions, which represent the 
best teachings of current political economy : 

To McCulloch's definition of capital as " all those por- 
tions of the produce of industry that may be directly employed 
either to support human existence or to facilitate production," 
there are obvious objections. One may pass along any 
principal street in a thriving town or city and see stores 
filled with all sorts of valuable things, which, though they 
cannot be employed either to support human existence or to 
facilitate production, undoubtedly constitute part of the 
capital of the storekeepers and part of the capital of the 
community. And he can also see products of industry capable 
of supporting human existence or facilitating production 
being consumed in ostentation or useless luxury. Surely 
these, though they might, do not constitute part of capital. 

Ricardo's definition avoids including as capital things 
which might be but are not employed in production, by 
covering only such as are employed. But it is open to the 
first objection made to McCulloch's. If only wealth that 
may be, or that is, or that is destined to be, used in supporting 
producers, or assisting production, is capital, then the stock 
of jewelers, toy dealers, tobacconists, confectioners, picture 
dealers, etc. — in fact, all stocks that consist of, and all stocks 
in so far as they consist of articles of luxury, are not capital. 

If Mill, by remitting the distinction to the mind of the 
capitalist, avoids this difficulty (which does not seem to me 
clear), it is by making the distinction so va^ue that no power 



36 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

short of omniscience could tell in an}^ given country at any 
given time what was and what was not capital. 

But the great defect which these definitions have in 
common is that they include what clearly cannot be accounted 
capital, if any distinction is to be made between laborer and 
capitalist. For they bring into the category of capital the 
food, clothing, etc., in the possession of the day laborer, 
which he will consume whether he M^orks or not, as well as 
the stock in the hands of the capitalist, with which he 
proposes to pay the laborer for his work. 

Yet, manifestly, this is not the sense in which the term 
capital is used by these writers when they speak of labor and 
capital as taking separate parts in the work of production 
and separate shares in the distribution of its proceeds ; when 
they speak of wages as drawn from capital, or as depending 
ui^on the ratio between labor and capital, or in any of the 
ways in which the term is generally used by them. In all 
these cases the term capital is used in its commonly under- 
stood sense, as that portion of wealth which its owners do not 
propose to use directly for their own gratification, but for the 
purpose of obtaining more wealth. In short, by political 
economists, in ever}^thing except their definitions and first 
principles, as well as by the world at large, *' that part of a 
man's stock," to use the words of Adam Smith, " which he 
expects to afford him revenue is called his capital." This is 
the only sense in which the term capital exf)resses any fixed 
idea— the only sense in which we can with any clearness 
separate it from wealth and contrast it with labor. For, if 
we must consider as capital everj^thing which supplies the 
laborer with food, clothing, shelter, etc., then to find a 
laborer who is not a capitalist we shall be forced to hunt up 
an absolutely naked man, destitute even of a sharpened 
stick, or of a burrow in the ground — a situation in which, save 
as the result of exceptional circumstances, human beings 
have never yet been found. 

It seems to me that the variance and inexactitude in these 
definitions arise from the fact that the idea of what capital 
is has been deduced from a preconceived idea of how capital 
as^sts production. Instead of determining what capital is, 
and then observing what capital does, the functions of capital 
have first been assumed, and then a definition of capital 
made which includes all things which do or may perform 
those functions. Let us reverse this process, and, adopting 
the natural order, ascertain what the thing is before settling 



THE MEANING OF THE TERMS. ^j 

what it does. All we are trying to do, all that it is necessary 
to do, is to fix, as it were, the metes and bounds of a term 
that in the main is well apprehended — to make definite, that 
is, sharp and clear on its verges, a common idea. 

If the articles of actual wealth existing at a given time in a 
given community "were presented in situ to a dozen intelligent 
men who had never read a line of political economy, it is. 
doubtful if they would differ in respect to a single item, as to 
whether it should be accounted capital or not. Money which 
its owner holds for use in his business or in speculation would 
be accounted capital ; money set aside for household or 
personal expenses would not. That part of a farmer's crop 
held for sale or for seed, or to feed his help in part payment 
of wages, would be accounted capital ; that held for the use 
of his own family would not be. The horses and carriage of 
a hackman would be classed as capital, but an equipage kept 
for the pleasure of its owner would not. So, no one would 
think of counting as capital the false hair on the head of a 
woman, the cigar in the mouth of a smoker, or the toy with 
which a child is playing ; but the stock of a hair dealer, of a 
tobacconist, or of the keeper of a toy fftore, would be unhesi- 
tatingly set down as capital. A coat which a tailor had made 
for sale would be accounted capital, but not the coat he had 
made for himself. Food in the possession of a hotel keeper 
or a restaurateur would be accounted capital, but not the food 
in the pantry of a housewife, or in the lunch basket of a 
Vv^orkman. Pig iron in the hands of the smelter, or founder, 
or dealer, would be accounted capital^ but not the pig iron 
used as ballast in the hold of a yacht. The bellows of a 
blacksmith, the looms of a factory, would be capital, but not 
the sewing machine of a woman who does only her own work; 
a building let for hire, or used for business or productive 
p irposes, but not a homestead. In short, I think we should 
find that now, as when Dr. Adam Smith wrote, " that part of 
a. man's stock which he expects to yield him a revenue is 
called his capital." And, omitting his unfortunate slip as to 
personal qualities, and qualifying somewhat his enumeration 
of money, it is doubtful if we could better list the different 
articles of capital than did Adam Smith in the passage which 
in the previous part of this chapter I have condensed. 

Now, if, after having thus separated the wealth that is 
capital from the weallh that is not capital, we look for the 
distinction between tlie two classes, we shall not find it to be 
as to the characier, capabilities, or final destination of the 



38 IVAGES AND CAPITAL. 

things themselves, as has been vainly attempted to draw it : but 
it seems to me that we shall find it to be as to whether they are 
or are not in the possession of the consumer.^ Such articles 
of wealth as in themselves, in their uses, or in their products, 
are yet to be exchanged are capital ; such articles of wealth as 
are in the hands of the consumer are not capital. Hence, if 
we define capital as wealth in course of exchange, understanding 
exchange to include, not merely the passing from hand to 
hand, but also such transmutations as occur when the repro- 
ductive or transforming forces of nature are utilized 
for the increase of wealth, we shall, I think, comprehend all 
the things that the general idea of capital properly includes, 
and shut out all it does not. Under this definition, it seems 
to me, for instance, will fall all such tools as are really 
capital. For it is as to whether its services or uses are to be 
exchanged or not which makes a tool an article of capital 
or merely an article of wealth. . Thus, the lathe of a man- 
ufacturer used in making things which are to be exchanged is 
capital, while the lathe kept by a gentleman for his own 
amusement is not. Thus, wealth used in the construction of 
a railroad, a public telegraph line, a stage coach, a theatre, a 
hotel, etc., may be said to be placed in the course of exchange. 
The exchange is not effected all at once, but little by little, 
with an indefinite number of people. Yet there is an ex- 
change, and the " consumers " of the railroad, the telegraph 
line, the stage coach, theatre or hotel, are not the owners, but 
the persons who from time to time use them. 

Nor is this definition inconsistent with the idea that capital 
is that part of wealth devoted to production. It is too nar- 
row an understanding of production which confines it merely 
to the making of things. Production includes not merely 
the making of things, but the bringing of them to the consu- 
mer. The merchant or storekeeper is thus as truly a produ- 
cer as is the manufacturer, or farmer, and his stock or capital 
is as much devoted to production as is theirs. But it is not 
worth while now to dwell upon the functions of capital, which 
we shall be better able to determine hereafter. Nor is the 
definition of capital I have suggested of any importance. I 
am not writing a text-book, but only attempting to discover 

* Money may be said to be in the hands of the consumer when devoted to the pro- 
curement of gratification, as, though not in itself devoted to consumption, it repre- 
sents wealth which is ; and thus what in the previous paragraph I have given as the 
common classification would be covered by this distinction, and would be substan- 
tially correct. In speaking of money, in this connection, I am of course speaking of 
coin, for although paper money may perform all the functions of coin, it is noj 
wealth, and cannot therefore be capital. 



THE MEANING OF THE TERMS. 39 

the laws which control a great social problem, and if the reader 
has been led to form a clear idea of what things are meant 
when we speak of capital my purpose is served. 

But before closing this digression let me call attention to 
what is often forgotten — namely, that the terms " wealth," 
" capital," " wages," and the like, as used in political econ- 
omy are abstract terms, and that nothing can be generally 
affirmed or denied of them that cannot be affirmed or denied of 
the whole class of things they represent. The failure to bear 
this in mind has led to much confusion of thought, and permits 
fallacies, otherwise transparent, to pass for obvious truths. 
Wealth being an abstract term, the idea of wealth, it must be 
remembered, involves the idea of exchangeability. The pos- 
session of wealth to a certain amount is potentially the pos- 
session of any or all species of wealth to that equivalent in 
exchange. And consequently, so of capital. 



CHAPTER III. 



WAGES NOT DRAWN FROM CAPITAL, BUT PRODUCED BY THE 

LABOR. 

The importance of this digression will, I think, become 
more and more apparent as we proceed in our inquiry, but 
its pertinency to the branch we are now engaged in may at 
once be seen. 

It is at first glance evident that the economic meaning of 
the term wages is lost sight of, and attention is concentrated 
upon the common and narrow meaning of the word, when it 
is affirmed that wages are drawn from capital. For, in all 
those cases in which the laborer is his own employer and 
takes directly the produce of his labor as its reward, it is 
plain enough that wages are not drawn from capital, but 
result directly as the product of the labor. If, for instance, 
I devote my labor to gathering birds' eggs or picking wild 
berries, the eggs or berries I thus get are my wages. Surely 
no one will contend that in such a case wages are drawn 
from capital. There is no capital in the case. An abso' 
lutely naked man, thrown on an island where no human 
being has before trod, may gather birds' eggs or pick berries. 

Or if I take a piece of leather and work it up into a pair of 
shoes, the shoes are my wages — the reward of my exertion. 
Surely they are not drawn from capital — either my capital or 
any one else's capital — but are brought into existence by the 
labor of which they become the wages ; and in obtaining 



40 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

this pair of shoes as the wages of my labor, capital is not 
even momentarily lessened one iota. For, if we call in the idea 
of capital, my capital at the beginning consists of the piece of 
leather, the thread, etc. As my labor goes on, value is 
steadily added, until, when my labor results in the finished 
shoes, I have my capital plus the difference in value between 
the material and the shoes. In obtaining this additional 
value — my wages — how is capital at any time drawn upon.'' 

Adam Smith, who gave the direction to economic thought 
that has resu .ed in the current elaborate theories of the 
relation between wages and capital, recognized the fact 
that in such simple cases as I have instanced, wages are the 
produce of labor, and thus begins his chapter u|Don the wages 
of labor (Chapter VIII): 

" The prodtice of labor constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labor 
In that original state of things whirli precedes both the appropriation of land and the 
accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labor belongs Lo the laborer. He 
has neither landlord nor master to share with him." 

Had the great Scotchman taken this as' the initial point of 
his reasoning, and continued to regard the produce of labor 
as the natural wages of labor, and the landlord and master 
but as sharers, his conclusions would have been very different, 
and political economy to-day Vv^ould not embrace such a mass 
of contradictions and absurdities ; but instead of following 
the truth obvious in the simple modes of production as a clue 
through the perplexities of the more complicated forms, he 
momentarily recognizes it, only to immediately abandon it, 
and stating that, " in every part of Europe twenty workmen 
serve under a master for one that is independent," he 
re-commences the inquiry from a point of view in which the 
master is considered as providing from his capital the wages 
of his workmen. 

It is evident that in thus placing the proportion of self- 
employing workmen as but one in twenty, Adam Smith had 
'n mind but the mechanic arts, and that, including all 
iaborers, the proportion who take their earnings directly 
without the intervention of an employer, must, even in Europe 
a hundred years ago, have been much greater than this. 
For, besides the independent laborers who in every com- 
munity exist in considerable numbers, the agriculture of large 
districts of Europe has, since the time of the Roman Empire, 
been carried on by the metayer system, under which the 
capitalist receives his return from the laborer instead of the 
laborer from the capitalist. At any rate, in the United States, 
where any general law of wages must apply as fully as in 



M'^A GBS NO T DRA WN FROM CAPITAL, 41 

Europe, and where in spite of the advance of manufactures, 
a very large part of the people are yet self-employing farmers, 
the proportion of laborers who get their wages through an 
employer must be comparatively small. 

But it is not necessary to discuss the ratio in which self- 
employing laborers anywhere stand to hired laborers, nor is 
it necessary to multiply illustrations of the truism that 
where the laborer takes directly his wages they are the 
product of his labor, for as soon as it is realized that the 
term wages includes all the earnings of labor, as well when 
taken directly by the laborer in the results of his labor as 
when received from an employer, it is evident that the 
assumption that wages are drawn from capital, on which as a 
universal truth such a vast superstructure is in standard 
politico-economic treatises so unhesitatingly built, is at least 
in large part untrue, and the utmost that can with any 
plausibility be affirmed, is that some wages {i. e, wages 
received by the laborer from the em.ployer) are drawn from 
capital This restriction of the major premiss at once 
invalidates all the deductions that are made from it; but 
without resting here, let us see whether even in this restricted 
sense it accords with the facts. Let us pick up the clue 
where Adam Smith dropped it, and advancing step by step, 
see whether the relation of facts which is obvious in the 
simplest forms of production does not run through the most 
complex. 

Next in simplicity to " that original state of things," of 
which many examples may be found, where the whole 
produce of labor belongs to the laborer, is the arrangement 
in which the laborer, though working for another person, or 
with the capital of another person, receives his wages in kind 
— that is to say, in the things his labor produces. In this 
case it is as clear as in the case of the self-employing laborer 
that the wages are really drawn from the produce of the 
labor, and not at nil from capital. If I hire a man to gather 
eggs, to pick berries, or to make shoes, paying him from the 
eggs, the berries, or the shoes, that his labor secures, there 
can be no question that the source of the wages is the labor 
for which they are paid. Of this form of hiring is the saer- 
and-daer stock tenancy, treated of with such perspicuity by 
Sir Henry Maine in his "Early History of Institutions," and 
which so clearly involved the relation of employer and 
employed as to render the acceptor of cattle the man or 
vassal of the capitalist v.'ho thus employed him. It was on 



42 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

such terms as these that Jacob worked for Laban, and to this 
day, even in civilized countries, it is not an infrequent mode 
of employing labor. The fanning of land on shares, which 
prevails to a considerable extent in the Southern States of 
the Union and in California, the metayer system of Europe, 
as well as the many cases in which superintendents, sales- 
men, etc., are paid by a percentage of profits, what are they 
but the employment of labor for wages which consist of part 
of its produce ? 

The next step in the advance from simplicity to complex 
ity is where the wages, though estimated in kind, are paid in 
an equivalent of something else. For instance, on American 
whaling ships the custom is not to pay fixed wages, but a 
" lay," or proportion of the catch, which varies from a six- 
teenth to a twelfth to the captain down to a three-hundredth 
to the cabin-boy. Thus, when a whaleship comes into New 
Bedford or San Francisco after a successful cruise, she 
carries in her hold the wages of her crew, as well as the 
profits of her owners, and an equivalent which will reimburse 
them for all the stores used up during the voyage. Can 
anything be clearer than that these wages — this oil and bone 
which the crew of the whaler have taken — have not been 
drawn from capital, but are really a part of the produce of 
their labor 1 Nor is this fact changed or obscured in the 
slightest degree where, as a matter of convenience, instead of 
dividing up between the crew their proportion of the oil and 
bone, the value of each man's share is estimated at the 
market price, and he is paid for it in money. The money is 
but the equivalent of the real wages, the oil and bone. In 
no way is their any advance of capital in this payment. The 
obligation to pay wages does not accrue until the value from 
which they are to be paid is brought into port At the 
moment when the owner takes from his capital money to pay 
the crew he adds to his capital oil and bone. 

So far there can be no dispute. Let us now take another 
step, which will bring us to the usual method of emplo3dng 
labor and paying wages. 

The Farallone Islands, off the Bay of San Francisco, are a 
hatching ground of sea-fowl, and a company who claim these 
islands employ men in the proper season to collect the eggs. 
They might employ these men for a proportion of the eggs 
they gather, as is done in the whale fishery, and probably 
would do so if there were much uncertainty attending the 
business ; but as the fowl are plentiful and tame, and abou^ 



WA GES NO T DRA WN FROM CAPITAL. 43 

SO many eggs can be gathered by so much labor, they find it 
more convenient to pay their men fixed wages. The men 
go out and remain on the islands, gathering the eggs and 
bringing them to a landing, whence, at intervals of a few 
days, they are taken in a small vessel to San Francisco and 
sold. When the season is over the men return and are paid 
their stipulated wages in coin. Does not this transaction 
amount to the same thing as if, instead of being paid in coin, 
the stipulated wages were paid in an equivalent of the eggs 
gathered ? Does not the coin represent the eggs, by the 
sale of which it was obtained, and are not these wages as 
much the product of the labor for which they are paid as the 
eggs would be in the possession of a man who gathered them 
for himself without the intervention of any employer 1 

To take another example, which shows by reversion the 
identity of wages in money with wages in kind. In San 
Buenaventura lives a man who makes an excellent living by 
shooting for their oil and skins the common hair seals which 
frequent the islands forming the Santa Barbara Channel. 
When on these sealing expeditions he takes two or three 
Chinamen along to help him, whom at first he paid wholly in 
coin. But it seems that the Chinese highly value some of the 
organs of the seal, which they dry and pulverize for medicine, 
as well as the long hairs in the whiskers of the male seal, 
which, when over a certain length, they greatly esteem for 
some purpose that to outside barbarians is not very clear. 
And this man soon found that the Chinamen were very willing 
to take instead of money these parts of the seals killed, so 
that now, in large part, he thus pa3^s them their wages. 

Now, is not what may be seen in all these cases — the iden- 
tity of wages in money with wages in kind, true of all cases 
in which wages are paid for productive labor ? Is not the 
fund created by the labor really the fund from which the 
wages are paid ? 

It may, perhaps, be said : " There is this difference — where 
a man works for himself, or where, when working for an 
employer, he takes his wages in kind, his wages depend upon 
the result of his labor. Should that, from any misadventure, 
prove futile, he gets nothing. When he works for an employer, 
however, he gets his wages anyhow — they depend upon the 
performance of the labor, not upon the result of the labor." 
But this is evidently not a real distinction. For on the 
average, the labor that is rendered for fixed wages not only 
yields the amount of the wages, but more ; else employers 
could make no profit. When wages are fixed, the employer 



44 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

takes the whole risk, and is compensated for this assurance, 
for wages when fixed are always somewhat less than wages 
contingent. But though when fixed w^ages are stipulated, the 
laborer who has performed his part of the contract has usually 
a legal claim upon the employer, it is frequently, if not 
generally, the case that the disaster wdiich prevents the 
employer from reaping benefit from the labor prevents him 
from paying the wages. And in one important department 
of industry the employer is legally exempt in case of disaster, 
although the contract be for wages certain and not contin- 
gent. For the maxim of admiralty lav/ is, that " freight is 
the mother of wages," and though the seaman may have 
performed his part, the disaster which prevents the ship from 
earning freight deprives him of claim for his v/ages. 

In this legal maxim is embodied the truth for which I am 
contending. Production is always the mother of wages. 
Without production, wages would not and could not be. It 
is from the produce of labor, not from the advances of 
capital that wages come. 

Wherever we analyze the facts this will be found to be 
true. For labor always precedes wages. This is as univer- 
sally true of wages received by the laborer from an employer 
as it is of wages taken directly by the laborer who is his own 
employer. In the one class of cases, as in the other, rev/ard 
is conditioned upon exertion. Paid sometimes by the day, 
oftener by the week or month, occasionally by the year, and 
in many branches of production by the piece, the payment of 
wages by an employer to an employee always implies the 
previous rendering of labor by the employee for the benefit 
of the employer, for the few cases in which advance payments 
are made for personal services are evidentl}^ referable either 
to charity or to guarantee and purchase. The name " retain- 
er," given to advance payments to lawyers, shows the true 
character of the transaction, as does the name "blood 
money" given in 'longshore vernacular to a payment which is 
nominally v/ages advanced to sailors, but which m reality is 
purchase money — both English and American law consider- 
ing a sailor as much a chattel as a pig. 

I dwell on this obvious fact that labor always precedes 
wages, because it is all important to an understanding of the 
more complicated phenomena of wages that it should be 
kept in mind. And obvious as it is, as I have put it, the 
plausibility of the proposition that wT.ges are drawn 
frojR capital — a proposition that is made the basis for such 



WAGES NOT DRAWiV FROM CAPITAL. 45 

important and far-reaching deductions — comes in the first in- 
stance from a statement that ignores and leads the attention 
away from this truth. That statement is, that labor cannot 
exert its productive power unless supplied by capital with 
maintenance. '* The unwary reader at once recognizes the 
fact that the laborer must have food, clothing, etc. , in order 
to enable him to perform the work, and having been told that 
the food, clothing, etc., used by productive laborers are 
capital, he assents to the conclusion that the consumption of 
capital is necessary to the application of labor, and from 
this it is but an obvious deduction that industry is limited by 
capital — that the demand for labor depends upon the supply 
of capital, and hence that wages depend upon the ratio between 
the number of laborers looking for employment and the 
amount of capital devoted to hiring them. 

But I think the discussion in the previous chapter will 
enable any one to see wherein lies the fallacy of this reason- 
ing — a fallacy which has entangled some of the most acute 
minds in a web of their own spinning. It is in the use of the 
term capital in two senses. In the primary proposition that 
capital is necessary to the exertion of productive labor, the 
term " capital " is understood as including all food, clothing; 
shelter, etc. ; whereas, in the deductions finally drawn from it, 
the term is used in its common and legitimate meaning of 
wealth devoted, not to the immediate gratification of desire, 
but to the procurement of more wealth — of wealth in the 
hands of employers as distinguished from laborers. The 
conclusion is no more valid than it would be from the accept- 
ance of the proposition that a laborer cannot go to work 
without his breakfast and some clothes, to infer that no more 
laborers can go to work than employers first furnish with 
breakfasts and clothes. Now, the fact is, that the laborers 
generally furnish their own breakfasts and the clothes in 
which they go to work ; and the further fact is, that capital 
(in the sense in which the word is used in distinction to labor) 
in exceptional cases sometimes may, but is never compelled 
to make advances to labor before the work begins. Of all 

* "Industry is limited by capital : * * There can be no more industry than is 
supphed with materials to work up and food to eat. Self-evident as the thing- is, it 
IS often forgotten that the people of a country are maintained and have their wants 
supplied not by the produce of present labor, but of past. They consume what 
has been produced, not what is about to be produced. Now, of what has been 
produced a part only is allotted to the support of productive labor, and there wil! 
not and cannot be more of that labor than the portion so allotted (which is the 
capital of the country) can feed and provide with the materials and instruments 
of production."— /£?/z« Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book I, 
Chap. V, Sec. I. 



46 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

the vast number of unemployed laborers in the civilized world 
to-day, there is probably not a single one willing to work 
who could not be employed without any advance of wages. 
A great proj^ortion would doubtless gladly go to work on 
terms which did not require the payment of wages before the 
end of the month ; it is doubtful if there are enough to be 
called a class who would not go to work and wait for their 
wages until the end of the week, as most laborers habitually 
do ; while there are certainly none who would not wait for 
their wages until the end of the day, or if you please, until 
the next meal hour. The precise time of the payment of 
wages is immaterial ; the essential point — the point I lay 
stress on — is that it is after the performance of work. 

The payment of wages, therefore, always implies the 
previous rendering of labor. Now, what does the rendering 
of labor in production imply ? Evidently the production of 
wealth, which, if it is to be exchanged or used in production, 
is capital. Therefore, the payment of capital in wages pre- 
supposes a production of capital by the labor for which the 
wages are paid. And as the employer generally makes a 
profit, the payment of wages is, so far as he is concerned, but 
the return to the laborer of a portion of the capital he has 
received from the labor. So far as the employee is concerned, 
it is but the receipt of a portion of the capital his labor has 
previously produced. As the value paid in the wages is thus 
exchanged for a value brought into being by the labor, how 
can it be said that wages are drawn from capital or advanced 
by capital ? As in the exchange of labor for wages the 
employer always gets the capital created by the labor before 
he pays out capital in the wages, at what point is his capital 
lessened even temporarily ?* 

Bring the question to the test of facts. Take, for instance, 
an employing manufacturer who is engaged in turning mw 
material into finished products — cotton into cloth, iron into 
hardware, leather into boots, or so on, as may be, and who 
pays his hands, as is generally the case, once a week. Make 

* I speak of labor producing capital for the sake of greater clearness. What 
labor always procures is either wealth (which may or may not be capital) or ser- 
vices, the cases in which nothing is obtained being merely exceptional cases of 
misadventure. Where the object of the labor is simply the gratification of the 
employer, as where I hire a man to black my boots, I do not pay the wages from 
caoital, but from wealth which I have devoted, not to reproductive uses, but to 
consumption for my own satisfaction. Even if wages thus paid be considered as 
drawn from capital, then by that act they pass from the category of capital to 
that of wealth devoted to the 'gratification of the possessor, as when a cigar dealer 
takes a dozen cigars from the stock he has for sale suid puts them in his pocket 
for his own use. 



IVAGES NOT BRA WN FROM CAPITAL. 47 

an exact inventoiy of his capital on Monday morning before 
the beginning of work, and it will consist of his buildings, 
machinery, raw materials, money on hand, and finished 
product in stock. Suppose, for the sake of simplicity, that 
he neither buys nor sells during the week, and after work has 
stopped and he has paid his hands on Saturday night, take a 
new inventory of his capital. The item of money will be less, 
for it has been paid out in wages ; there will be less raw 
material, less coal, etc., and a proper deduction must be made 
from the value of the buildings and machinery for the Vv^eek's 
wear and tear. But if he is doing a remunerative business, 
which must on the average be the case, the item of finished 
products will be so much greater as to compensate for all 
these deficiencies and show in the summing up an increase 
of capital. Manifestly, then, the value he paid his hands in 
wages was not drawn from his capital, or from any one else's 
capital. It came, not from capital, but from the value created 
by the labor itself. There was no more advance of capital 
than if he had hired his hands to dig clams, and paid them 
with a part of the clams they dug. Their wages were as 
truly the produce of their labor as were the wages of the 
primitive man, when, long " before the appropriation of land 
and the accumulation of stock," he obtained an oyster by 
knocking it with a stone from the rocks. 

As the laborer who works for an employer does not get his 
wages until he has performed the work, his case is similar to 
that of the depositor in a bank who cannot draw money out 
until he has put money in. And as by drawing out what he 
has previously put in, the bank depositor does not lessen the 
capital of the bank, neither can laborers by receiving wages 
lessen even temporarily either the capital of the employer or 
the aggregate capital of the community. Their w?:ges no 
more come from capital than the checks of depositors are 
drawn against bank capital. It is true that laborers in receiv- 
ing wages do not generally receive back wealth in the same 
form in which they have rendered it, any more than bank 
depositors receive back the identical coins or bank notes they 
have deposited, but they receive it in equivalent form, and as 
we are justified in saying that the depositor receives from the 
bank the money he paid in, so are we justified in saying that 
the laborer receives in wages the wealth he has rendered 
in labor. 

That this universal truth is so often obscured, is largely 
due to that fruitful source of economic obscurities, the cori* 



48 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

founding of wealth with money ; and it is remarkable to see 
so many of those who, since Dr. Adam Smith made the egg 
stand on its end, have copiously demonstrated the fallacies of 
the mercantile system, fall into delusions of the very same 
kind in treating of the relations of capital and labor. Money 
being the general medium of exchanges, the common flux 
through which all transmutations of wealth from one form, to 
another take place, whatever difficulties may exist to an 
exchange will generally show themselves on the side of 
reduction to money, and thus it is sometimes easier to 
exchange money for any other form of wealth than it is to 
exchange \yealth in a particular form into money, for the 
reason that there are more holders of wealth who desire to 
make some exchange than there are who desire to make any 
particular exchange. And so a producing employer who has 
paid out his money in wages may sometimes find it difficult 
to turn quickly back into money the increased value for which 
his money has really been exchanged, and is spoken of as 
having exhausted or advanced his capital in the payment of 
wages. Yet, unless the new value created by the labor is less 
than the wages paid (which can be only an exceptional case), 
the capital which he had before in money he now has in 
goods — it has been changed in form, but not lessened. 

There is one branch of production in regard to which the 
confusions of thought which arise from the habit of esti- 
mating capital in money are least likely to occur, inasmuch 
as its product is the general material and standard of money. 
And it so happens that this business furnishes us, almost side 
by side, with illustrations of production passing from the 
simplest to most complex forms. 

In the early days of California, as afterwards in Australia, 
the placer miner, who found in river bed or surface deposit 
the glittering particles which the slow processes of nature 
had been for ages accumulating, picked up or washed out 
his " wages " (so, too, he called them) in actual money, for 
coin being scarce, gold dust passed as currency by weight, 
and at the end of the day had his wages in money in a buck- 
skin bag in his pocket. There can be no dispute as to 
whether these wages came from capital or not. They were 
manifestly the produce of his labor. Nor could there be 
any dispute when the holder of a specially rich claim hired 
men to work for him, and paid them off in the identical 
money which their labor had taken from gulch or bar. As 
coin became more abundant, its greater convenience in sav- 



WA GES NO T DRA WN FROM CAPITAL. 49 

(ng the trouble and loss of weighing, assigned gold dust to 
the place of a commodity, and with coin obtained by the 
sale of the dust their labor had procured, the employing 
miner paid, off his hands. Where he had coin enough to 
do so, instead of selling his gold dust at the nearest store, 
and paying a dealer's profit, he retained it until he got 
enough to take a trip, or send by express to San Francisco, 
where at the mint he could have it turned into coin without 
charge. While thus accumulating gold dust he was lessening 
his stock of coin ; just as the manufacturer, while accumulat- 
ing a stock of goods, lessens his stock of money. Yet no 
one would be obtuse enough to imagine that, in thus taking 
in gold dust and paying out coin, the miner was lessening 
his capital. 

But the deposits that could be worked without preliminary 
labor were soon exhausted, and gold mining rapidly took a 
more elaborate character. Before claims could be opened so 
as to yield any return, deep shafts had to be sunk, great dams 
constructed, long tunnels cut through the hardest rock, water 
brought for miles over mountain ridges and across deep val- 
leys, and expensive machinery put up. These works could 
not be constructed without capital. Sometimes their construc- 
tion required years, during which no return could be hoped 
for, while the men employed had to be paid their wages 
every week, or every month. Surely, it will be said, in such 
cases, even if in no others, wages do actually come from 
capital ; are actually advanced by capital ; and must necessa- 
rily lessen capital in their payment ! Surely here, at least, in- 
dustry is limited by capital, for without capital such works 
could not be carried on ! Let us see : 

It is cases of this class that are always instanced as showing 
that wages are advanced from capital. For where wages are 
paid before the object of the labor is obtained, oris finished — ■ 
as in agriculture, where plowing and sowing must precede by 
several months the harvesting of the crop ; as in the erection 
of buildings, the construction of ships, railroads, canals, etc. 
— it is clear that the owners of the capital paid in wages can- 
not expect aa immediate return, but, as the phrase is, must 
'' outlay it," or " lie out of it " for a time, which sometimes 
amounts to many years. And hence, if first principles are 
not kept in mind, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that 
wages are advanced by capital. 

But such cases will not embarrass the reader to whom in 



50 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

what has preceded I have made myself clearly understood. 
An easy analysis will show that these instances where wages 
are paid before the product is finished or even produced, do 
not afford any exception to the rule apparent where the pro- 
duct is finished before wages are paid. 

If I go to a broker to exchange silver for gold, I lay down 
my silver, which he counts and puts away, and then hands me 
the equivalent in gold, minus his commission. Does the broker 
advance me any capital ? Manifestly not. What he had 
before in gold he now has in silver, plus his profit. And as he 
got the silver before he paid out the gold there is on his part 
not even momentarily an advance of capital. 

Now, this operation of the broker is precisely analogous 
to what the capitalist does, when, in such cases as we are now 
considering, he pays out capital in wages. As the rendering 
of labor precedes the payment of wages, and as the rendering 
of labor in production implies the creation of value, the em- 
ployer receives value before he pays out value — he but ex- 
changes capital of one form for capital of another form. For 
the creation of value does not depend upon the finishing 
of the product ; it takes place at every stage of the process 
of production, as the immediate result of the application of 
labor, and hence, no matter how long the process in which it 
is engaged, labor always adds to capital by its exertion before 
it takes from capital in its wages. 

Here is a blacksmith at his forge making picks. Clearly 
he is making capital — adding picks to his employer's capital 
before he draws money from it in wages. Here is a machinist 
or boilermaker working on the keel-plates of a Great Eastern. 
Is not he also just as clearly creating value — making capital? 
The giant steamship, as the pick, is an article of wealth, an 
instrument of production, and though the one may not be 
completed for years, while the other is completed in a few 
minutes, each day's work, in the one case as in the other, is 
as clearly a production of wealth — an addition to capital. 
In the case of the steamship, as in the case of the pick, it is 
not the last blow, any more than the first blow, that creates 
the value of the finished product — the creation of value is 
continuous, it immediately results from the exertion of 
labor. 

We see this very clearly wherever the division of labor has 
made it customary for different parts of the fuU process of 
production to be carried on by different sets of producers — 
that is to say, wherever we are in the habit of estimating the 



WAGES NOT BRA WN FROM CAPITAL. 51 

amount of value which the labor expended in any preparatory 
stage of production has created. And a moment's reflection 
will show that this is the case as to the vast majority of pro- 
ducts. Take a ship, a building, a jack-knife, a book, a lady's 
thimble, or a loaf of bread. They are finished products. 
But they were not produced at one operation or by one set 
of producers. And this being the case, we readily distinguish 
different points or stages in the creation of the value which 
as completed articles they represent. When we do not dis- 
tinguish different parts in the final process of production we do 
distinguish the value of the materials. The value of these ma- 
terials may often be again decomposed many times, exhibiting 
as many clearly defined steps in the creation of the final 
value. At each of these steps we habitually estimate a crea- 
tion of value, an addition to capital. The batch of bread 
which the baker is taking from the oven has a certain value. 
But this is composed in part of the value of the flourfrom which 
the dough was made. And this again is composed of the 
value of the wheat, the value given by milling, etc. Iron in 
the form of pigs is very far from being a completed product. 
It must yet pass through several, or, perhaps, through many, 
stages of production before it results in the finished articles 
that were the ultimate objects for which the iron ore was ex- 
tracted from the mine. Yet, is not pig iron capital ? And so 
the process of production is not really completed when a crop 
of cotton is gathered, nor yet when it is ginned and presse-d ; 
nor yet when it arrives at Lowell or Manchester ; nor 
yet when it is converted into yarn ; nor yet when it be- 
comes cloth ; but only when it is finally placed in the hands 
of the consumer. Yet at each step in this progress there is 
clearly enough a creation of value — an addition to capital. 
Why, therefore, although we do not so habitually distinguish 
and estimate it, is there not a creation of value — an addition 
to capital — when the ground is plowed for the crop ? Is it be- 
cause it may possibly be a bad season and the crop may fail ? 
Evidently not : for a like possibility of misadventure attends 
every one of the many steps in the production of the finished 
article. On the average a crop is sure to come up, and so 
much plowing and sowing will on the average result in so 
much cotton in the boll, as surely as so much spinning of cot- 
ton yarn will result in so much cloth. 

In short, as the payment of wages is always conditioned 
upon the rendering of labor, the payment of wages in pro- 
duction, no matter how long the process, never involves any 



52 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

advance of capital, or even temporarily lessens capital. It 
may take a year, or even years, to build a ship, but the crea- 
tion of value of which the finished ship will be the sum, goes, 
on day by day, and hour by hour, from the time the keel is 
laid or even the ground is cleared. Nor by the payment of 
wages before the ship is completed, does the master builder 
lessen either his capital or the capital of the community, for 
the value of the partially completed ship stands in place of 
liie value paid out in wages. There is no advance of capital 
in this payment of wages, for the labor of the workmen during 
the week or month creates and renders to the builder more 
capital than is paid back to them at the end of the week or 
month, as is shown by the fact that if the builder were at any 
stage of the construction asked to sell a partially completed 
ship he would expect a profit. 

And so, when a Sutro or a St. Gothard tunnel or a Suez 
canal is cut, there is no advance of capital. The tunnel or 
canal, as it is cut, becomes capital as much as the money 
spent in cutting it — or, if you please, the powder, drills, etc., 
used in the work, and the food, clothes, etc., used by the 
workmen — as is shown by the fact that the value of the cap- 
ital stock of the company is not lessened, as capital in these 
forms is gradually changed into capital in the form of tunnel 
or canal. On the contrary, it probably, and on the average, 
increases as the work progresses, just as the capital invested 
in a speedier mode of production would on the average 
increase. 

And this is obvious in agriculture also. That the creation 
of value does not take place all at once when the crop is 
gathered, but step by step during the whole process which the 
gathering of the crop includes, and that no payment of wages 
in the interim lessens the farmer's capital, is tangible enough 
when land is sold or rented during the process of production, 
as a plowed field will bring more than an unplowed field, or a 
field that has been sown more than one merely plowed. It is 
tangible enough when growing crops are sold, as is sometimes 
done, or where the farmer does not himself harvest, but lets a 
contract to the owner of harvesting machinery. It is tangible 
in the case of orchards and vineyards which, though not yet 
in bearing, bring prices proportionate to their age. It is tan- 
gible in the case of horses, cattle and sheep, which increase 
in value as they grow toward maturity. And if not always 
tangible between what may be called the usual exchange 
points in production, this increase of value as surely takes 



F/AGES NOT BRA WA' FROM CAPITAL. 



53 



place with every exertion of labor. Hence, -where labor is 
rendered before wages are paid, the advance of capital is 
really made by labor, and is from the employed to the em- 
ployer, not from the employer to the employed. 

" Yet," it may be said, " in such cases as Vv^e have been 
considering capital is required ! " Certainly ; I do not dis- 
pute that. But it is not required in order to make advances 
to labor. It is required for quite another purpose. What 
that purpose is we may readil}^ see. 

When wages are paid in kind — that is to say, in wealth of 
the same species as the labor produces ; as, for instance, if I 
hire men to cut wood, agreeing to give them as V\^ages a por- 
tion of the wood they cut (a method sometimes adopted by 
the owners or lessees of woodland), it is evident that no cap- 
ital is required for the payment of wages. Nor yet when, for 
the sake of mutual convenience, arising from the fact that a 
large quantity of wood can be more readily and more advan- 
tageously exchanged than a number of small quantities, I 
agree to pay wages in money, instead of wood, shall I need 
any capital, provided I can make the exchange of the wood 
for money before the wages are due. It is only when I can- 
not make such an exchange, or such an advantageous 
exchange as I desire, until I accumulate a large quantity of 
wood, that I shall need capital. Nor even then shall I need 
capital if I can make a partial or tentative exchange by bor- 
rowing on my wood. If I cannot, or do not choose, either to 
sell the wood or to borrow upon it, and yet wish to go ahead 
accumulating a large stock of wood, I shall need capital. 
But manifestly, I need this capital, not for the payment of 
wages, but for the accumulation of a stock of wood. Like- 
wise in cutting a tunnel. If the workmen were paid in tunnel 
(which, if convenient, might easily be done by paying them in 
stock of the company), no capital for the payment of wages 
would be required. It is only when the undertakers wish to 
accumulate capital in the shape of a tunnel that they will need 
capital. To recur to our first illustration : The broker to 
whom I sell my silver cannot carry on his business without 
capital. But he does not need this capital because he makes 
any advance of capital to me when he receives my silver and 
hands me gold. He^needs it because the nature of the busi- 
ness requires the keeping of a certain amount of capital on 
hand, in order that when a customer comes he may be pre- 
pared to make the exchange the customer desires. 

And so we shall find it in every branch of production. 



54 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

Capital has never to be set aside for the payment of wages 
when the produce of the labor for which the wages are paid 
is exchanged as soon as produced ; it is only required when 
this produce is stored up, or what is to the individual the 
same thing, placed in the general current of exchanges 
without being at once drawn against — that is, sold on credit. 
But the capital thus required is not required for the payment 
of wages, nor for advances to labor, as it is always represent- 
ed in the produce of the labor. It is never as an employer 
of labor that any producer needs capital ; when he does need 
capital, it is because he is not only an employer of labor, but 
a merchant or speculator in, or an accumulator of, the 
products of labor. This is generally the case with employers. 

To recapitulate : The man w^ho works for himself gets his 
wages in the things he produces, as he produces them, and 
exchanges this value into another form whenever he sells the 
produce. The man who works for another for stipulated 
wages in money, works under a contract of exchange. He 
also creates his wages as he renders his labor, but he does 
not get them except at stated times, in stated amounts and in 
a different form. In performing the labor he is advancing in 
exchange ; when he gets his wages the exchange is completed. 
During the time he is earning the wages he is advancing 
capital to his employer, but at no time, unless wages are paid 
before work is done, is the employer advancing capital to him. 
Whether the employer who receives this produce in exchange 
for the wages, immediately re-exchanges it, or keeps it for 
awhile, no more alters the character of the transaction than 
does the final disposition of the product made by tne ultimate 
receiver, who may, perhaps, be in another quarter of the 
globe and at the end of a series of exchanges numbering 
hundreds. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE MAINTENANCE OF LABORERS NOT DRAWN FROM CAPITAL. 

But a stumbling block may yet remain, or may recur, in 
the mind of the reader. 

As the plowman cannot eat the furrow, nor a partially 
completed steam engine aid in any way in producing the 
clothes the machinist wears, have I not, in the words of John 
Stuart Mill, "forgotten that the people of a country are 



LABORERS NOT MAINTAINED BY CAPITAL. 55 

maintained and have their wants supplied, not by the produce 
of present labor, but of past ? " Or, to use the language of a 
popular elementary work — that of Mrs. Fawcett — have I not 
" forgotten that many months must elapse between the sowing 
of the seed and the time when the produce of that seed is 
converted into a loaf of bread," and that " it is, therefore, 
evident that laborers cannot live upon that which their labor, 
is assisting to produce, but are maintained by that wealth 
which their labor, or the labor of others, has previously 
produced, which wealth is capital ? " * 

The assumption made in these passages — the assumption 
that it is so self-evident that labor must be subsisted from 
capital that the proposition has but to be stated to compel 
recognition — runs through the whole fabric of current 
political economy. And so confidently is it held that the 
maintenance of labor is drawn from capital that the proposi- 
tion that " population regulates itself by the funds which are 
to employ it, and, therefore, always increases or diminishes 
with the increase or diminution of capital," t is regarded as 
equally axiomatic, and in its turn made the basis of important 
reasoning. 

Yet being resolved, these propositions are seen to be, not 
self-evident, but absurd ; for they involve the idea that labor 
cannot be exerted until the products of labor are saved — thus 
putting the product before the producer. 

And being examined, they will be seen to derive their 
apparent plausibility from a confusion of thought. 

I have already pointed out the fallacy, concealed by an 
erroneous definition, which underlies the proposition, that 
because food, raiment and shelter are necessary to productive 
labor, therefore industry is limited by capital. To say that a 
man must have his breakfast before going to work is not to 
say that he cannot go to work unless a capitalist furnishes 
him with a breakfast, for this breakfast may, and in point of 
fact in any country where there is not actual famine will come, 
not from wealth set apart for the assistance of production, 
but from wealth set apart for subsistence. And, as has been 
previously shown, food, clothing, etc. — in short all articles of 
wealth — are only capital so long as they remain in the 
possession of those who propose, not to consume, but to 
exchange them for other commodities, or for productive 

* Political Economy for Beginners, by Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Chap. Ill, p. 25. 

t The words quoted are Ricardo's (Chap. II) ; but the idea is common in 
standard works. 



S6 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

services, and cease to be capital when they pass into the 
possession of those who will consume them ; for in that 
transaction they pass from the stock of wealth held for the 
purpose of procuring other wealth, and pass into the stock of 
wealth held for purposes of gratification, irrespective of 
whether their consumption will aid in the production of wealth 
or not. Unless this distinction is preserved it is impossible 
to draw the line between the wealth that is capital and the 
wealth that is not capital, even by remitting the distinction to 
the " mind of the possessor," as does John Stuart Mill. For 
men do not eat or abstain, wear clothes or go naked, as they 
propose to engage in productive labor or not. They eat 
because they are hungry, and wear clothes because they would 
be uncomfortable without them. Take the food on the 
breakfast table of a laborer who will work or not that day as 
he gets the opportunity. If the distinction between capital 
and non-capital be the support of productive labor, is this 
food capital or not 1 It is as impossible for the laborer 
himself as for any philosopher of the Ricardo-Mill school to 
tell. Nor yet can it be told when it gets into his stomach ; 
nor, supposing that he does not get work at first, but continues 
the search, can it be told until it has passed into the blood 
and tissues. Yet the man will eat his breakfast all the same. 

But, though it would be logically sufficient, it is hardly safe 
to rest here and leave the argument to turn on the distinction 
between wealth and capital. Nor is it necessary. It seems 
to me that the proposition that present labor must be main- 
tained by the produce of past labor will upon analysis prove 
to be only true in the sense that the afternoon's labor must 
be performed by the aid of the noonday meal, or that before 
you eat the hare he must be caught and cooked. And this, 
manifestly, is not the sense in which the proposition is used to 
support the important reasoning that is made to hinge upon 
it. That sense is, that before a v/ork which will not immedi- 
ately result in wealth available for subsistence can be carried 
on, there must exist such a stock of subsistence as will support 
the laborers during the process. Let us see if this be true : 

The canoe which Robinson Crusoe made with such infinite 
toil and pains was a production in which his labor could not 
yield an immediate return. But was it necessary that, before 
he commenced, he should accumulate a stock of food suffi- 
cient to maintain him while he felled the tree, hewed out the 
canoe, and finally launched her into the sea ? Not at all. It 
was only necessary that he should devote part of his time to 



LABORERS NOT MAINTAINED BY CAPITAL. 57 

the procurement of food while he was devoting part of his 
time to the building and launching of the canoe. Or suppos- 
ing a hundred men to be landed, without any stock of provis- 
ions, in a new country. Will it be necessary for them to ac- 
cumulate a season's stock of provisions before they can begin 
to cultivate the soil ? Not at all. It will only be necessary 
that fish, game, berries, etc., shall be so abundant that the 
labor of a part of the hundred may suffice to furnish daily 
enough of these for the maintenance of all, and that there 
shall be such a sense of mutual interest, or such a correlation 
of desires, as shall lead those who in the present get the food, 
fo divide (exchange) with those whose efforts are directed to 
future recompense. What is true in these cases is true in all 
cases. It is not "necessary to the production of things that 
cannot be used as subsistence, or cannot be immediately util- 
ized, that there should have been a previous production of the 
wealth required for the maintenance of the laborers while the 
production is going on. It is only necessary that there should 
be, somewhere within the circle of exchange, a contempora- 
neous production of sufficient subsistence for the laborers, 
and a willingness to exchange this subsistence for the thing 
on which the labor is being bestowed. 

And as a matter of fact, is it not true, in any normal con- 
dition of things, that consumption is supported by contempo- 
raneous production ? 

Here is a luxurious idler, Vv^ho does no productive work 
either with head or hand, but lives, we say, upon wealth which 
his father left him securely invested in government bonds. 
Does his subsistence, as a matter of fact, come from wealth 
accumulated in the past or from the productive labor that is 
going on around him? On his table are new-laid eggs, butter 
churned but a few days before, milk which the cow gave this 
morning, fish which twenty-four hours ago were swimming in 
the sea, meat which the butcher boy has just brought in time 
to be cooked, vegetables fresh from the garden, and fruit from 
the orchard — in short, hardly anything that has not recently 
left the hand of the productive laborer (for in this category 
must be included transporters and distributors as well as those 
who are engaged in the first stages of production), and noth- 
ing that has been produced for any considerable length of 
time, unless it may be some bottles of old wine. What this 
man inherited from his father, and on which we say he lives, 
is not actually wealth at all, but only the power of command' 



58 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

ing wealth as others produce it. And it is from this contem- 
poraneous production that his subsistence is drawn. 

The fifty square miles of London undoubtedly contain 
more wealth than within the same space anywhere else exists. 
Yet were productive labor in London to absolutely cease, 
within a few hours people would begin to die like rotten 
sheep, and within a few weeks, or at most a few months, 
hardly one would be left alive. For an entire suspension of 
productive labor would be a disaster more dreadful than ever 
yet befel a beleaguered city. It would not be a mere external 
wall of circumvallation, such as Titus drew around Jerusalem, 
which would prevent the constant incoming of the supplies 
on which a great city lives, but it would be the drawing of a 
similar wall around each household. Imagine such a suspen- 
sion of labor in any community, and j^ou will see how true it 
is that mankind really live from hand to mouth ; that it is the 
daily labor of the community that supplies the community 
with its daily bread. 

Just as the subsistence of the laborers who built the 
Pyramids was drawn not from a previously hoarded stock, 
but from the constantly recurring crops of the Nile Valley ; 
just as a modern government when it undertakes a great 
work of years does not appropriate to it wealth already pro- 
duced, but wealth yet to be produced, which is taken from 
producers in taxes as the work progresses ; so is it that the 
subsistence of the laborers engaged in production which does 
not directly yield subsistence comes from the production of 
subsistence in which others are simultaneously engaged. 

If we trace the circle of exchange by which work done in 
the production of a great steam engine secures to the worker 
bread, meat, clothes and shelter, we shall find that though 
between the laborer on the engine and the producers of the 
bread, meat, etc., there may be a thousand intermediate ex- 
changes, the transaction when reduced to its lowest terms, 
really amounts to an exchange of labor between him and 
them. Now the cause which induces the expenditure of the 
labor on the engine, is evidently that some one who has power 
to give what is desired by the laborer on the engine wants 
in exchange an engine^ — that is to say, there exists a demand 
for an engine on the part of those who are producing what 
the producers of the bread, meat, etc., desire. It is this 
demand which directs the labor of the machinist to the pro- 
duction of the engine, and hence, reversely, the demand of 
the machinist for bread, etc., really directs an equivalent 



LABORERS NOT MAINTAINED BY CAPITAL. 59 

amount of labor to the production of these things, and thus 
his labor, actually exerted in the production of the engine, 
virtually produces the things in which he expends his wages. 
Or, to formularize this principle : 

The demand for consumption determines the direction in which 
labor will be expended in production. 

This principle is so simple and obvious that it needs no 
further illustration, yet in its light all the complexities of our 
subject disappear, and we thus reach the same view of the 
real objects and rewards of labor in the intricacies of mod- 
ern production that we gained by observing in the first begin- 
nings of society the simpler forms of production and exchange. 
We see that now, as then, each laborer is endeavoring to ob- 
tain by his exertions the satisfaction of his own desires ; we 
see that although the minute division of labor assigns to each 
producer the production of but a small part, or perhaps 
nothing at all, of the particular things he labors to get, yet, 
in aiding in the production of what other producers want, he 
is directing other labor to the production of the things he 
wants — in effect, producing them himself. And thus, if he 
makes jack-knives and eats wheat, the wheat is really as much 
the produce of his labor as if he had grown it for himself and 
left wheat-growers to make their own jack-knives. 

We thus see how thoroughly and completely true it is, that 
in whatever is taken or consumed by laborers in return for 
labor rendered, there is no advance of capital to the laborers. 
If I have made jack-knives, and with the wages received 
have bought wheat, I have simply exchanged jack-knives for 
wheat — added jack-knives to the existing stock of wealth and 
taken wheat from it. And as the demand for consumption 
determines the direction in which labor will be expended in 
production, it cannot even be said, so long as the limit of 
wheat production has not been reached, that I have lessened 
the stock of wheat, for, by placing jack-knives in the exchange- 
able stock of wealth and taking wheat out, I have determined 
labor at the other end of a series of exchanges to the produc- 
tion of wheat, just as the wheat grower, by putting in wheat 
and demanding jack-knives determined labor to the produc- 
tion of jack-knives, as the easiest way by which wheat could 
be obtained. 

And so the man who is following the plow — though the 
crop for which he is opening the ground is not yet sown, and 



6o WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

after being sown will take months to arrive at maturity — he 
is yet, by the exertion of his labor in plowing, virtually pro- 
ducing the food he eats and the wages he receives. For, 
though plowing is but a part of the operation of producing a 
crop, it is a part, and as necessary a part as harvesting. The 
doing of it is a step toward procuring a crop, which by the 
assurance which it gives of the future crop, sets free from the 
stock constantly held the subsistence and wages of the plow- 
man. This is not merely theoretically true, it is practically 
and literally true. At the proper time for plowing, let 
plowing cease. Would not the symptoms of scarcity at 
once manifest themselves without waiting for the time of the 
harvest ? Let plowing cease, and would not the effect at once 
be felt in counting-room, and machine shop, and factory ? 
Would not loom and spindle soon stand as idle as the plow ? 
That this would be so, we see in the effect which immediately 
follows a bad season. And if this would be so, is not the man 
who plows really producing his subsistence and wages as much 
as though during the day or week his labor actually resulted 
in the things for which his labor is exchanged ? 

As a matter of fact, where there is labor looking for em- 
ployment, the want of capital does not prevent the owner of 
land which promises a crop for which there is a demand, from 
hiring it. Either he makes an agreement to cultivate on 
shares, a common method in some parts of the United States, 
in which case the laborers, if they are without means of sub- 
sistence, will, on the strength of the work they are doing, ob- 
tain credit at the nearest store ; or, if he prefers to pay wages, 
the farmer will himself obtain credit, and thus the work done 
in cultivation is immediately utilized or exchanged as it is 
done. If anything more will be used up than would be used 
up if the laborers were forced to beg instead of to work (for 
in any civilized country during a normal condition of things 
the laborers must be supported anyhow), it will be the reserve 
capital drawn out by the prospect of replacement, and which 
is in fact replaced by the work as it is done. For instance, 
in the purely agricultural districts of Southern California there 
was in 1877 a total failure of the crop, and of millions of 
sheep nothing remained but their bones. In the great San 
Joaquin Valley were many farmers without food enough to 
support their families until the next harvest time, let alone to 
support any laborers. But the rains came again in proper 
season, and these very farmers proceeded to hire hands to 
plow and sow. For every here and there was a farmer who 



TBE REAL FUNCTIONS OF CAPITAL. 6i 

had been holding back part of his crop. As soon as the rains 
came he was anxious to sell before the next harvest brought 
lower prices, and the gfain thus held in reserve, through the 
machinery of exchanges and advances, passed to the use of 
the cultivators — set fiee, in efiect produced, by the work done 
for the next crop. 

The series of exchanges which unite production and con- 
sumption may be likened to a curved pipe filled with water. 
If a quantity of water is poured in at one end, a like quantity 
is released at the other. It is not identically the same water, 
but is its equivalent. And so diey who do the work of pro- 
duction put in as they take out — they receive in subsistence 
and wages but the produce of their labor. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE REAL FUNCTIONS OF .^Al^IYAL. 

It may now be asked. If capital is no^' required for the 
payment of wages or the support of labor during production, 
what, then, are its functions? 

The previous examination has made the answer clear. 
Capital, as we have seen, consists of wealth used for the 
procurement of more wealth, as distinguished from wealth 
used for the direct satisfaction of desire ; or, as I think it 
may be defined, of wealth in the course of exchange. 

Capital, therefore, increases the power of labor to produce 
wealth : (i) By enabling labor to apply itself in more effective 
ways, as by digging up clams with a spade instead of the 
hand, or moving a vessel by shovelling coal into a furnace, 
instead of tugging at an oar. (2) By enabling labor to avaii 
itself of the reproductive forces of nature, as to obtain corn by 
sowing it, or animals by breeding them. (3) By permitting 
the division of labor, and thus, on the one hand, increasing 
the efficiency of the human factor of wealth, by the utilization 
of special capabilities, the acquisition of skill, and the reduc- 
tion of waste ; and, on the other, calling in the powers of the 
natural factor at their highest, by taking advantage of the 
diversities of soil, climate and situation, so as to obtain each 
particular species of wealth where nature is most favorable 
to its production. 

Capital does not supply the materials which labor works 
up into wealth, as is erroneously taught; the materials of 



62 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

wealth are supplied by nature. But such materials partially 
worked up and in the course of exchange are capital. 

Capital does not supply or advance wages, as is erroneously 
taught. Wages are that part of the produce of his labor 
obtained b]/ the laborer. 

Capital does not maintain laborers during the progress of 
their work, as is erroneously taught. Laborers are manitained 
by their labor, the man who produces, in vdiole or in part, 
anything that v/ill exchange for articles of maintenance, 
virtually producing that maintenance. 

Capital, therefore, does not limit industry, as is erroneously 
taught, the only limit to industry being the access to natural 
material. But capital may limit the form of industry and the 
productiveness of industry, by limiting the use of tools and 
the division of labor. 

That capital may limit the form of industry is clear. With- 
out the factory, there could be no factory operatives ; without 
the sewing machine no machine sewing ; without the 
plow, no plowman ; and without a great capital engaged 
in exchange, industry could not take the many special forms 
which are concerned with exchanges. It is also as clear that 
the want of tools must greatly limit the productiveness of 
industry. If the farmer must use the spade because he has 
not capital enough for a plow, the sickle instead of the 
reaping machine, the flail instead of the thresher ; if the 
machinist must rely upon the chisel for cutting iron ; the 
weaver on the hand loom, and so on, the productiveness of 
industry cannot be a tithe of v'hat it is Vv'hen aided by capital 
in the shape of the best tools now in use. Nor could the 
division of labor go further than the very rudest and almost 
imperceptible beginnings, nor the exchanges which make it 
possible extend beyond the nearest neighbors, unless a 
portion of the things produced v/ere constantly kept in stock 
or in transitu. Even the pursuits of hunting, fishing, gath- 
ering nuts, and making weapons, could not be specialized so 
that an individual could devote himself to any one, unless 
some part of what was procured by each was reserved from 
immediate consumption, so that he Vs/ho devoted himself to 
the procurement of things of one kind could obtain the others 
as he wanted them, and could make the good luck of one day 
supply the short-comings of the next. While to permit 
the minute subdivision of labor that is characteristic of and 
necessary to high civilization, a great amount of wealth of 
all descriptions must be constantly kept in stock or in 



THE REAL FUNCTIONS OF CAPITAL. 63 

transitu. To enable the resident of a civilized community to 
exchange his labor at option with the labor of those around 
him and with the labor of men in the most remote parts of 
the globe, there must be stocks of goods in warehouses, in 
stores, in the holds of ships, and in railway cars, just as to 
enable the denizens of a great city to draw at will a cupful of 
water, there must be thousands of millions of gallons stored . 
in reservoirs and moving through miles of pipe. 

But to say that capital may limit the form of industry or 
the productiveness of industry is a very different thing from 
saying that capital limits industry. For the dictum of the 
current poHtical economy that " capital limits industry," 
means not that capital limits the form of labor or the pro- 
ductiveness of labor, but that it limits the exertion of labor. 
This proposition derives its plausibility from the assumption 
that capital supplies labor with materials and maintenance — 
an assumption that we have seen to be unfounded, and which 
is indeed transparently preposterous the moment it is remem- 
bered that capital is produced by labor, and hence that there 
must be labor before there can be" capital. Capital may limit 
the form of industry and the productiveness of industry; but 
this is not to say that there could be no industry without 
capital, any more than it is to say that without the power 
loom there could be no weaving ; v.dthout the sewing machine 
no sewing ; no cultivation without the plow ; or, that in a 
community of one, like that of Robinson Crusoe, there could 
be no labor because there could be no exchange. 

And to say that capital may limit the form and productive- 
ness of industry is a different thing from saying that capital 
does. For the cases in which it can be truly said that the 
form or productiveness of the industry of a community is 
limited by its capital, will, I think, appear upon examination 
to be more theoretical than real. It is evident that in such a 
country as Mexico or Tunis the larger and more general use 
of capital would greatly change the forms of industry and 
enormously increase its productiveness ; and it is often said 
of such countries, that they need capital for the development 
of their resources. But is there not something back of this — 
a want which includes the want of capital ? Is it not the 
rapacity and abuses of government, the insecurity of property, 
the ignorance and prejudice of the people, that prevent the 
accumulation and use of capital ? Is not the real limitation 
in these things, and not in the want of capital, which would 
not be used, even if placed there? We can, of course, 



64 WAGES AND CAPITAL, 

imagine a community in which the want of capital would be 
the only obstacle to an increased productiveness of labor, but 
it is only by imagining a conjunction of conditions that 
seldom, if ever, occurs, except by accident or as a passing 
phase. A community in which capital has been swept away 
by war, coilflagration, or convulsion of nature, and, possibly, 
a community composed of civilized people just settled in a 
new land, seem to me to furnish the only examples. Yet 
how quickly the capital habitually used is reproduced in a 
community that has been swept by war, has long been 
noticed, while the rapid production of the capital it can, or is 
disposed to use, is equally noticeable in the case of a new 
community. 

I am unable to think of any other than such rare and 
passing conditions in which the productiveness of labor is 
really limited by the want of capital. For, although there 
may be in a community individuals who from want of capital 
cannot apply their labor as efficiently as they would; yet so 
long as there is a sufficiency of capital in the community at 
large, the real limitation is not the want of capital, but the 
want of its proper distribution. If bad government rob the 
laborer of his capital, if unjust laws take from the producer 
the wealth with which he would assist production, and hand 
it over to those who are mere pensioners upon industry, the 
real limitation to the effectiveness of labor is in misgovern- 
ment, and not in want of capital. And so of ignorance, or 
custom, or other conditions, which prevent the use of capital. 
It is they, not the want of capital, that really constitute the 
limitation. To give a circular saw to a Terra del Fuegan, a 
locomotive to a Bedouin Arab, or a sewing machine to a 
Flathead squaw, would not be to add to the efficiency of 
their labor. Neither does it seem possible by giving any- 
thing else to add to their capital, for any wealth beyond 
what they had been accustomed to use as capital would be 
consumed or suffered to waste. It is not tlie want of seeds 
and tools that keeps the Apache and the Sioux from 
cultivating the soil. If provided with seeds and tools they 
would not use them productively unless at the same time 
restrained from wandering and taught to cultivate the soil. 
If all the capital of a London were given them in their 
present condition, it would simply cease to be capital, for 
they would only use productively such infinitesimal part as 
might assist in the chase, and would not even use that until all 
the edible part of the stock thus showered upon them had been 



THE REAL FUNCTIONS OF CAPITAL. 65 

consumed. Yet such capital as they do want, they manage 
to acquire, and in some forms in spite of the greatest 
difficulties. These wild tribes hunt and fight with the best 
weapons that American and English factories produce, keep- 
ing up with the latest improvements. It is only as they 
became civilized that they would care for such other capital 
as the civilized state requires, or that it would be of any use 
to them. 

In the reign of George IV., some returning missionaries 
took with them to England a New Zealand chief called 
Hongi. His noble appearance and beautiful tatooing attracted 
much attention, and when about to return to his people he 
was presented by the monarch and some of the religious 
societies with a considerable stock of tools, agricultural 
instruments, and seeds. The grateful New Zealander did 
use this capital in the production of food, but it was in a 
manner of which his English entertainers little dreamed. In 
Sydney, on his way back, he exchanged it all for arms and 
ammunition, with which, on getting home, he began war 
against another tribe with such success that on the first 
battle field three hundred of his prisoners were cooked and 
eaten, Hongi having preluded the main repast by scooping 
out and swallowing the eyes and sucking the warm blood of 
his mortally wounded adversary, the opposing chief.* But 
now that their once constant wars have ceased, and the 
remnant of the Maoris have largely adopted European habits, 
there are among them many who have and use considerable 
amounts of capital. 

Likewise it would be a mistake to attribute the simple 
modes of production and exchange which are resorted to in 
new communities solely to a want of capital. These modes, 
which, require little capital, are in themselves rude and ineffi- 
cient, but when the conditions of such communities are 
considered, they will be found in reality the most effective. 
A great factory with all the latest improvements, is the most 
efficient instrument that has yet been devised for turning wool 
or cotton into cloth, but only so where large quantities are to 
be made. The cloth required for a little village could be 
made with far less labor by the spinning wheel and hand 
loom. A perfecting press will, for each man required, print 
many thousand impressions while a man and a boy v/ould be 
printing a hundred with a Stanhope or Franklin press ; yet to 

* New Zealand and its Inhabitants. Rev. Richard Taylor. London, 1835. 
Chap. XXI. 



66 WAGES AND CAPITAL. 

work off the small edition of a country newspaper the old' 
fashioned press is by far the most efficient machine. To 
occasionally carry two or three passengers, a canoe is a better 
instrmnent than a steamboat ; a few sacks of flour can be 
transported with less expenditure of labor by a pack horse 
than by a railroad train ; to put a great stock of goods into a 
cross-roads store in the back-woods would be but to waste capi- 
tal. And, generally, it v/ill be found that the rude devices of 
production and exchange which obtain among the sparse 
populations of new countries, result not so much from the 
want of capital as from inability to profitably employ it. 

As, no matter how much water is poured in, there can 
never be in a bucket more than a bucketful, so no greater 
amount of wealth will be used as capital than is required by 
the machinery of production and exchange that under all the 
existing conditions — intelligence, habit, security, density of 
population, etc. — best suit the people. And I am inclined to 
think that as a general rule this amount will be had — that the 
social organism secretes, as it v/ere, the necessary amount of 
capital just as the human organism in a healthy condition 
secretes the requisite fat. 

But whether the amount of capital ever does limit the 
productiveness of industry, and thus fix a maximum which 
wages cannot exceed, it is evident that it is not from any 
scarcity of capital that the poverty of the masses in civilized 
countries proceeds. For not only do wages nowhere reach 
the limit fixed by the productiveness of industry, but wages 
are relatively the low^est where capital is most abundant. 
The tools and machinery of production are in ail the most 
progressive countries evidently in excess of the use made of 
■^hem, and any prospect of remunerative employment brings 
out more than the capital needed. The bucket is not only 
full ; it is overflowing. So evident is this, that not only 
among the ignorant, but by men of high economic reputation, 
is industrial depression attributed to the abundance of 
machinery and the accumulation of capital ; and war, which 
is the destruction of capital, is looked upon as the cause of 
brisk trade and high wages — an idea strangely enough, so 
great is the confusion of thought on such matters, counte- 
nanced by many who hold that capital employs labor and 
pays wages. 

Our purpose in this inquiry is to solve the problem to 
which so many self-contradictory answers are given. In ascer- 



RECAPITULATION. 67 

taining clearly what capital really is and what capital reall)/ 
does, we have made the first, and an all-important step. But 
it is only a first step. Let us recapitulate and proceed. 

We have seen that the current theory that wages depend 
upon the ratio between the number of laborers and the 
amount of capital devoted to the employment of labor is 
inconsistent with the general fact that wages and interest do 
not rise and fall inversely, but conjointly. 

This discrepancy having led us to an examination of the 
grounds of the theory, we have seen, further, that, contrary 
to the current idea, wages are not drawn from cajDital at all, 
but come directly from the produce of the labor for w^hich 
they are paid. We have seen that capital does not advance 
wages or subsist laborers, but that its functions are to assist 
labor in production with tools, seed, etc., and with the wealth 
required to carry on exchanges. 

We are thus irresistibly led to practical conclusions so 
important as to amply justify the pains taken to make sure of 
them.. 

For if wages are drawn, not from capital, but from the 
produce of labor, the current theories as to the relations of 
capital and labor are invalid, and all remedies, whether 
proposed by professors of political economy or working-men, 
which look to the alleviation of poverty either by the increase 
of capital or the restriction of the number of laborers or the 
efficiency of their v/ork, must be condemned. 

If each laborer in performing the labor really creates the 
fund from w^hich his wages are drawn, then wages cannot be 
diminished by the increase of laborers, but, on the contrary, 
as the efficiency of labor manifestly increases with the number 
of laborers, the more laborers, other things being equal, the 
higher should wages be. 

But this necessary proviso, "other things being equal," 
brings us to a question which must be considered and dis- 
posed of before we can further proceed. That question is, 
Do the productive powers of nature tend to diminish with 
the increasing drafts made upon them by increasing popula- 
tion ? 



BOOK 11. 

POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. 



Are God and natiu-e then at strife 

That nature lends such evil dreams ? 

So careful of the type she seems, 
So careless of the single life. 

— Tennyson. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY, ITS GENESIS AND SUPPORT- 

Behind the theory we have been considering lies a theory 
we have yet to consider. Tlie current doctrine as to the 
derivation and lav/ of wages finds its strongest support in a 
doctrine as generally accepted — the doctrine to which Mal- 
thus has given his name — that population naturally tends 
to increase faster than subsistence. These two doctrines, 
fitting in with each other, frame the answer which the cur- 
rent political economy gives to the great problem we are 
endeavoring to solve. 

In what has preceded, the current doctrine that wages are 
determined by the ratio between capital and laborers has, I 
think, been shown to be so utterly baseless as to excite 
surprise as to how it could so generally and so long obtain. 
It is not to be wondered at that such a theory should have 
arisen in a state of society where the great body of laborers 
seem to depend for employment and wages upon a separate 
class of capitalists, nor yet that under these conditions it 
should have maintained itself among the masses of men, 
who rarely take the trouble to separate the real from the 
apparent. But it is surprising that a theory which on exam- 
ination appears to be so groundless could have been suc- 
cessivly accepted by so many acute thinkers as have during 
the present century devoted their powers to the elucidation 
Hnd development of the science of political economy. 

The explanation of this otherwise unaccountable fact is to 
fee found in the general acceptance of the Malthusian theory. 
The current theory of wages has never been fairly put upon 
its trial, because, backed by the Malthusian theory, it has 



THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 69 

seemed in the minds of political economists a self-evident 
truth. These two theories mutually blend with, strengthen, 
and defend each other, while they both derive additional 
support from a principle brought prominently forward in the 
discussions of the theory of rent — viz., that past a certain 
point the application of capital and labor to land yields a 
diminishing return. Together they give such an explanation 
of the phenomena presented in a highly organized and ad- 
vancing society as seems to fit all the facts, and which has 
thus prevented closer investigation. 

Which of these two theories is entitled to historical pre- 
cedence it is hard to say. The theory of population was not 
formulated in such a way as to give it the standing of a 
scientific dogma until after that had been done for the theory 
of wages. But they naturally spring up and grow with each 
other, and were both held in a form more or less crude long 
prior to any attempt to construct a system of political 
economy. It is evident, from several passages, that though 
he never fully developed it, the Malthusian theory was in 
rudimentary form present in the mind of Adam Smith and 
to this, it seems to me, must be largely due the misdirection 
which on the subject of wages his speculations took. But, 
however this may be, so closely are the two theories connected, 
so completely do they complement each ether, that Buckle, 
reviewing the history of the development of political economy 
in his " Examination of the Scotch Intellect during the 
Eighteenth Century," attributes mainly to Malthus the honor of 
" decisively proving " the current theory of wages by ad- 
vancing the current theory of the pressure of population 
upon subsistence. He says in his " History of Civilization 
in England," Vol. Ill, Chap. V : 

" Scarcely had the Eighteenth Century passed away when it was decisively proved 
that the reward of labor depends solely on two things ; namely, the /lagnitude of 
that national fund out of whi(jh all labor is paid, and the number of laborers among 
whom the fund is to be divided. This vast step in our knowledge is due, mainly, 
though not entirely, to Malthus, whose work on population, besides marking an 
epoch in the history of speculative thought, has already produced considerable 
practical results, and will probably give rise to others more considerable still. It 
was published in 1798 ; so that Adam Smith, who died in 1790, missed what to him 
would have been the intense pleasure of seeing how, in it, his own views were 
expanded rather than corrected. Indeed, it is certain that without Smith there 
would have been no Malthus ; that is, unless Smith had laid the foundation, 
Malthus could not have raised the superstructure." 

The famous doctrine which ever since its enunciation has 
so powerfully influenced thought, not alone in the province of 
political economy, but in regions of even higher speculation, 
was formulated by Malthus in the proposition that (as shown 



70 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

by the growth of the North American colonies) the natural 
tendency of population is to double itself at least every 
twenty-five years, thus increasing in a geometrical ratio, 
while the subsistence that can be obtained from land " under 
circumstances the most favorable to human industry could 
not possibly be made to increase faster than in an arithmetical 
ratio, or by an addition every twenty-five years of a quantity 
equal to what it at present produces." " The necessary 
effects of these two different raies of increase, when brought 
together," Mr. Malthus naively goes on to say, "will be very 
striking." And thus (Chap. I) he brings them together : 

" Let us call the population of this island eleven millions ; and suppose the 
present produce equal to the easy support of such a number. In the first twenty- 
five years the population would be twenty-two millions, and the food being also 
doubled, the means of subsistence would be equal to this increase. In the next 
twenty-five years the population would be! forty-four millions, and the means of 
subsistence only equal to the support of thirty-three millions. In the next period 
the population would be equal to eighty-eight millions, and the means of subsistence 
just equal to the support jf half that number. And at the conclusion of the first 
century, the population would be a hundred and seventy-six millions, and the means 
of subsistence only equal to the support of fifty-five millions : leaving a population 
of a hundred and twenty-one millions totally unprovided for. 

" Taking the whole earth instead of this island, emigration would of course be 
excluded ; and supposing the present population equal to a thousand millions, the 
human species would increase as the numbers, i, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and sub- 
sistence as I, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. In two centuries the population would be to the 
means of subsis^^ence as 256 to 9 ; in three centuries, 4,096 to 13, and in two thousand 
years the difference v/ould be almost incalculable." 

Such a result is of course prevented by the physical fact 
that no more people can exist than can find subsistence, and 
hence Malthus' conclusion is, that this tendency of population 
to indefinite increase must be held back either by moral 
restraint upon the reproductive faculty, or by the various 
causes which increase mortality, which he resolves into vice 
and misery. Such causes as prevent propagation he styles 
the preventive check ; such causes as increase mortality he 
styles the positive check. This is the famous Malthusian 
doctrine, as promulgated by Malthus himself in the " Essay 
on Population." 

It is not worth while to dwell upon the fallacy involved in 
the assumption of geometrical and arithmetical rates of 
increase, a play upon proportions which hardly rises to the 
dignity of that in the familiar puzzle of the hare and the 
tortoise, in which the hare is made to chase the tortoise 
through all eternity without coming up with him. For this 
assumption is not necessary to the Malthusian doctrine, or at 
least is expressly repudiated by some of those who fully 
accept that doctrine ; as, for instance, John Stuart Mill, who 
speaks of it as " an unlucky attempt to give precision ti 



THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY, 71 

things which do not admit of it, whicli every person capable 
of reasoning must see is wholly superfluous to the argu- 
ment." * The essence of the Malthusian doctrine is, that 
population tends to increase faster than the power of 
providing food, and whether this difference be stated as a 
geometrical ratio for population and an arithmetical ratio for 
subsistence, as by Malthus ; or as a constant ratio for 
population and a diminishing ratio for subsistence, as by Mili^ 
is only a matter of statement. The vital point, on which 
both agree, is, to use the words of Malthus, "that there is a 
natural tendency and constant effort in population to increase 
beyond the means of subsistence." 

The Malthusian doctrine, as at present held, may be thus 
stated in its strongest and least objectionable form: 

That population, constantly tending to increase, must, 
when unrestrained, ultimately press against the limits of 
subsistence, not as against a fixed, but as against an elaslic 
barrier, which makes the procurement of subsistence pro- 
gressiveiy more and more difficult. And thus, wherever 
reproduction has had time to assert its power, and is uncheck- 
ed by prudence, there must exist that degree of want which 
will keep population within the bounds of subsistence. 

Although in reality not more repugnant to the sense, of 
harmonious adaptation by creative beneficence and wisdom 
than the complacent no-theory which throws the responsi- 
bility for poverty and its concomitants upon the inscrutable 
decrees of Providence, without attempting to trace them, this 
theory, in avowedly making vice and suffering the necessary 
results of a natural instinct with which are linked the purest 
and sweetest affections, comes rudely in collision with ideas 
deeply rooted in the human mind, and it was, as soon as 
formally promulgated, fought with a bitterness in which zeal 
was often more manifest than logic. But it has triumphantly 
withstood the ordeal, and in spite of the refutations of the 
Godwins, the denunciations of the Cobbetts, and all the 
shafts that argument, sarcasm, ridicule, and sentiment could 
direct against it, to-day it stands in the world of thought as 
an accepted truth, which compels the recognition evep of 
those who would fain disbelieve it. 

* Principles of Political Economy, Book II, Chap. IX. Sec. VI.— Yer notwith- 
standing what Mill says, it is clear that Malthus himself lays great stres« upon his 
geometrical and arithmetical ratios, and it is also probable that it is tc these ratios 
that Malthus is largely indebted for his fame, as they supplied one of those high 
sounding formulas that with many people carry far more weight than the clearcss 
reasoning. 



72 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE, 

The causes of its triumph, the sources of its strength, are 
not obscure. Seemingly backed by an indisputable arithmet- 
ical truth — that a continuously increasing population must 
eventually exceed the capacity of the earth to furnish food 
or even standing room, the Malthusian theory is supported by 
analogies in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, where life 
everywhere beats wastefully against the barriers that hold its 
different species in check — analogies to which the course of 
modern thought, in leveling distinctions between different 
forms of life, has given a greater and greater weight ; and it 
is apparently corroborated by many obvious facts, such as the 
prevalence of poverty, vice, and misery amid dense popula- 
tions ; the general effect of material progress in increasing 
population without reheving pauperism ; the rapid growth of 
numbers in newly settled countries, and the evident retardation 
of increase in more densely settled countries by the mortality 
among the class condemned to want. 

The Malthusian theory furnishes a general principle which 
accounts for these and similar facts, and accounts for them 
in a way which harmonizes with the doctrine that wages are 
drawn from capital, and with all the prmciples that are 
deduced from it. According to the current doctrine of wages, 
wages fall as increase in the number of laborers necessitates 
a more minute division of capital ; according to the Mal- 
thusian theory, poverty appears as increase in population 
necessitates the more minute division of subsistence. It 
requires but the indentihcation of capital with subsistence, 
and number of laborers with populcition, an indentification 
made in the current treatises on political economy, where the 
terms are often converted, to make the two propositions as 
identical formally as they are substantially.* And thus it is, 
as stated by Buckle in the passage previously quoted, that 
the theory of population advanced by Mai thus has appeared 
to decisively prove the theory of wages advanced by Smith. 

Ricardo, who a few years subsequent to the publication of 
the " Essay on Population" corrected the mistake into^ which 
Smith liad fallen as to the nature and cause of rent, furnished 
the Malthusian theory an additional support by calling 
attention to the fact that rent would increase as the necessities 
of increasing population forced cultivation to less and less 
productive lands, or to less and less productive points on the 

* The effect of the MaUhusian doctrine xtpon the definitions of capital may, I 
think^ be seen by comparing (see pp. 27, 28) the definition of Smith, who wrota 
prior to Malthns, with the definitions of Ricardo, McCulloch and Mill, who wrot< 
subsequently. 



THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY, 73 

same lands, and thus explaining the rise of rent. In this 
way was formed, as it were, a triple combination, by which 
the Malthusian theory has been buttressed on both sides — 
the previously received doctrine of wages and the subsequently 
received doctrine of rent exhibiting in this view but special 
examples of the operation of the general principle to which 
the name of Malthus has been attached — the fall in wages 
and the rise in rents which come with increasing population 
being but modes in which the pressure of population upon 
subsistence shows itself. 

Thus taking its place in the very frame work of political 
economy (for the science as currently accepted has under- 
gone no material change or improvement since the time of 
Ricardo, though in some minor points it has been cleared and 
illustrated), the Malthusian theory, though repugnant to sen- 
timents before alluded to, is not repugnant to other ideas, 
which, in older countries at least, generally prevail among the 
working classes ; but, on the contrary, like the theory of 
wages by which it is supported and in turn supjDorts, it har- 
monizes with them. To the mechanic or operative the cause 
of low wages and of the inability to get employment is 
obviously the competition caused by the pressure of numbers, 
and in the squalid abodes of poverty what seems clearer than 
that there are too many people ? 

But the great cause of the triumph of this theory is, that, 
instead of menacing any vested right or antagonizing any 
powerful interest, it is eminently soothing aud reassuring to 
the classes who, wielding the power of wealth, largely dom- 
inate thought. At a time when old supports were falling 
away, it came to the rescue of the special privileges by which 
a few monopolize so much of the good things of this world, 
proclaiming a natural cause for the want and misery which, if 
attributed to political institutions, must condemn every gov- 
ernment under which they exist. The " Essay on Population '' 
was avowedly a reply to William Godwin's " Inquiry con- 
cerning Political Justice," a work asserting the principle of 
human equality ; and its purpose was to justify existing 
inequality by shifting the responsibility for it from human insti- 
tutions to the laws of the Creator. There was nothing new 
in this, for Wallace, nearly forty years before, had brought 
forward the danger of excessive multiplication as the answer 
to the demands of justice for an equal distribution of wealth ; 
but the circumstances of the times were such as to make the 
same idea, when brought forward by Malthus, peculiarly 



74 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

grateful to a powerful class, in whom an intense fear of any 
questioning of the existing state of things had been generated 
by the outburst of the French Revolution. 

Now, as then, the Malthusian doctrine parries the demand 
for reform, and shelters selfishness from question and from 
conscience by the interposition of an inevitable necessity. It 
furnishes a philosophy by which Dives as he feasts can shut 
out the image of Lazarus who faints with hunger at his door ; 
by which wealth may with a good conscience button up its 
pocket when poverty asks an alms, and the rich Christian 
bend on Sundays in a nicely upholstered pew to implore the 
good gifts of the Ail Father without any feeling of responsi- 
bility for the squalid misery that is festering but a square 
away. For poverty, want, and starvation are by this theory 
not chargeable either to individual greed or to social mal- 
adjustments ; they are the inevitable results of universal laws, 
with which, if it were not impious, it were as hopeless to 
quarrel as with the law of gravitation. In this view, he who 
in the midst of want has accumulated wealth, has but fenced 
in a little oasis from the driving sand which else would have 
overwhelmed it. He has gained for himself, but has hurt 
nobody. And even if the rich were to literally obey the in- 
junctions of Christ and divide their wealth among the poor, 
nothing would be gained. Population would be increased, 
only to press again upon the limits of subsistence or capital, 
and the equality that would be produced would be but the 
equality of common misery. And thus reforms which would 
interfere with the interests of any powerful class are discour- 
aged as hopeless. As the moral law forbids any forestalling 
of the methods by which the natural law gets rid of surplus 
population and holds in check a tendency to increase potent 
enough to pack the surface of the globe with human beings 
as sardines are packed in a box, nothing can really be done, 
either by individual or by combined effort, to extirpate poverty, 
save to trust to the efficacy of education and preach the 
necessity of prudence. 

A theory that, falling in with the habits of thought of the 
poorer classes, thus justifies the greed of the rich and the 
selfishness of the powerful, will spread quickly and strike its 
roots deep. This has been the case with the theory advanced 
by Malthus. 

And of late years the Malthusian theory has received new 
support in the rapid change of ideas as to the origin of man 
and the genesis of species. That Buckle v/as right in say^ag 



THE MALTBUSIAN THE O FY. 75 

that the promulgation of the Malthusiau theory marked an 
epoch in the history of speculative tliought could, it seems to 
me, be easily shown ; yet 10 trace its influence in the higher 
domains of philosophy (of which Buckle's own work is an ex- 
ample) would, though extremely interesting, carry us beyond 
the scope of this investigation. But how much be reflex and 
how much original, the support which is given to the Malthu- 
sian theory by the new philosophy of development, now rap-, 
idly spreading in every direction, must be noted in any 
estimate of the resources from which this theory derives its 
present strength. As in political economy, the support re- 
ceived from the doctrine of wages and the doctrine of rent 
combined to raise the Malthusian theory to the rank of a 
central truth, so the extension of similar ideas to the devel- 
opment of life in all its forms has the effect of giving it a 
still higher and more impregnable position. Agassiz, wdio, to 
the day of his death, was a strenuous opponent of the new 
philosoph}^, spoke of Darwinism as " Malthus all over," * and 
Darwin himself says the struggle for existence " is the doc- 
trine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole an- 
imal and vegetable kingdoms. "f 

It does not, however, seem to me exactly correct to say 
that the theory of development by natural selection or survi- 
val of the fittest, is extended Malthusianism, for the doctrine 
of Malthus did not originally and does not necessarily involve 
(.he idea of progression. But this was soon added to it. 
McCulloch ij: attributes to the " principle of increase " social 
improvement and the progress of the arts, and declares that 
the poverty that it engenders acts as a powerful stimulus to 
the development of industry, the extension of science and 
the accumulation of wealth by the upper and middle classes, 
without which stimulus society would quickly sink into apa- 
thy and decay. What is this but the recognition in regard to 
human society of the developing effects of the " struggle for 
existence " and " survival of the fittest," which we are now 
told on the authority of natural science have been the means 
which Nature has employed to bring forth all the infinitely di- 
versified and wonderfully adapted forms which the teeming 
life of the globe assumes ? What is it but the recognition of 
the force, which, seemingly cruel and remorseless, has yet in 

* Address before Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1872. Report L\ 
S. Department of Agriculture, 1873. 
+ Origin of Species, Chap. III. 
X Note IV. to Wealth of Nations. 



76 POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

the course of unnumbered ages developed the claui from S 
lower type ; the monkey from the clam ; the man from the 
monkey, and the Nineteenth Century from the age of 
stone ? 

Thus commended and seemingly proved, thus linked and 
buttressed, the Malthusian theory — the doctrine that poverty 
is due to the pressure of population against subsistence, or, 
to put it in its other form, the doctrine that the tendency t(? 
increase in the number of laborers must always tend to re 
duce wages to the minimum on which laborers can repro 
duce — :is now generally accepted as an unquestionable truth, 
in the light of which social phenomena are to be explained, 
just as for ages the phenomena of the sidereal heavens were 
explained upon the supposition of the fixity of the earth, or 
the facts of geology upon that of the literal inspiration of the 
Mosaic record. If authority were alone to be considered, to 
formally deny this doctrine would require almost as much au- 
dacity as that of the colored preacher who recently started 
out on a crusade against the opinion that the earth moves 
around the sun, for in one form or another, the Malthusian 
doctrine has received in the intellectual world an almost uni- 
versal indorsement, and in the best as in the most common 
literature of the day may be seen cropping out in every direc-. 
tion. It is endorsed by economists and by statesmen, by his- 
torians and by natural investigators ; by social science 
congresses and by trade unions ; by churchmen and by mate- 
rialists ; by conservatives of the strictest sect and by the most 
radical of radicals. It is held and habitually reasoned from 
by many who never heard of Malthus and who have not the 
slightest idea of what his theory is. 

Nevertheless, as the grounds of the current theory of 
wages have vanished when subjected to a candid examination, 
so, do I believe, will vanish the grounds of this, its twin. In 
proving that wages are not drawn from capital we have raised 
this Antaeus from the earth. 



CHAPTER II. 

INFERENCES FROM FACTS. 



The general acceptance of the Malthusian theory and the 
high authority by which it is endorsed, have seemed to me 
to make it expedient to review its grounds and the causes 



INFERENCES FROM FACTS. 77 

which have conspired to give it such a dominating influence 
in the discussion of social questions. 

But when we subject the theory itself to the test of straight- 
forward analysis, it will, I think, be found as utterly untenable 
as the current theory of wages. 

In the first place, the facts which are marshaled in sup- 
port of this theory do not prove it, and the analogies do not 
countenance it. 

And, in the second place, there are facts which conclusively 
disprove it. 

I go to the heart of the matter in saying that there is no 
warrant, either in experience or analogy, for the assumption 
that there is any tendency in population to increase faster 
than subsistence. The facts cited to show this simply show 
that where, owing to the sparseness of population, as in new 
countries, or where, owing to the unequal distribution of 
wealth, as among the poorer classes in old countries, human 
life is occupied with the physical necessities of existence, the 
tendency to reproduce is at a rate which would, were it to go 
on unchecked, some time exceed subsistence. But it is 
not a legitimate inference from this, that the tendency to 
reproduce would show itself in the same force where popu- 
lation was sufficiciitly dense and wealth distributed with 
sufficient evenness to lift a whole community above the 
necessity of devoting their energies to a struggle for mere 
existence. Nor can it be assumed that the tendency to 
reproduce, by causing povert}", must prevent the existence 
of such a community ; for this, manifestly, would be assuming 
the very point at issue, and reasoning in a circle. And even 
if it be admitted that tfie tendency to multiply must ultimately 
produce poverty, it cannot from this alone be predicated of 
existing poverty that it is due to this cause, until it be shown 
that there are no other causes which can account for it — a 
thing in the present state of government, laws, and customs, 
'"manifestly impossible. 

liis is abundantly shown in the "Essay on Population" 
itself. This famous book, which is much oftener spoken of 
than read, is still well worth perusal, if only as a literary cu- 
riosity. The contrast between the merits of the book itself 
and the effect it has produced, or is at least credited with (for 
though Sir James Stewart, Mr. Townsend, and others, share 
with Malthus the glory of discovering '' the principle of popu- 
lation," it was the publication of the " Essay on Population " 
that brought it prominently forward), is, it seems to me, one 



78 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

of the most remarkable things in the history of Hteratiire ; 
and it is easy to ui.derstand how Godwin, whose " PoUtical 
Justice" provoked tj.ie " Essay on Population," should until 
his old age have disdained a reply. It begins with the assump« 
tion that population tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, 
while subsistence can at best be made to increase only in an 
arithmetical ratio — an assumption just as valid, and no more 
so, than it would be, from the fact that a pupjiy doubled the 
length of his tail while he added so many pounds to his 
weight, to assert a geometric progression of tail and an arith- 
metical progression of weight. And, the inference from the 
assumption is just such as Swift in satire might have credited 
to the savans of a previously dogless island, who, by bringing 
these two ratios together, might deduce the very "' striking 
consequence " that by the time the dog grew to a weight of 
fifty pounds his tail would be over a mile long, and extremely 
difficult to wag, and hence recommend the prudential check 
of a bandage as the only alternative to the positive check of 
constant amputations. Commencing with such an absurdity, 
the essay includes a long argument for the imposition of a 
duty on the importation, and the payment of a bounty for 
the exportation of corn, an idea that has long since been sent 
to the limbo of exploded fallacies. And it is marked through- 
out the argumentative portions by passages which shov/ on 
the part of the reverend gentleman the most ridiculous inca- 
pacity for logical thought — as, for instance, that if wages were 
to be increased from eighteen pence or two shillings per day 
to five shillings, meat would necessarii)^ increase in price from 
eight or nine pence to two or three shillings per pound, and 
the condition of the laboring classes would therefore not be 
improved, a statement to which I can think oi no i allel so 
close as a proposition I once heard a certain printer gravely 
advance — that b=icause an author, whom he had kncwn, 
was forty years old when he was twenty, the author must now 
be eighty years old because he (the printer) was forty. This 
confusion of thought does not merely crop out here and there , 
it characterizes the whole work,* The main body of the 

* Malthus' other works, thoug-h written atter he became famous, made no mark,, 
and are treated with contempt even by those who find in the Essay a g'reat discov- 
ery. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, for instance, though fully accepting' the %.^\-^ 
thusian theory, says of Malthus' Political Economy; "It is very ill arrangt;d, and 
is in no respect either a practical or a scientific exposition of the subject. It is in 
g-reat part occupied with an examination of parts of Mr. Ricardo's peculiar doc- 
trines, and with an inquiry into the nature and causes of value, Nothing", howevei 
can be more unsatisfactory than these discussions. In truth Mr. Malthus never 
had any clear or accurate perception ot Mr. Ricardo's theories, or of the principles 
svhicA determine the value tn exchange cf different articles-.' 



INFERENCES FROM FACTS, 79 

book is taken up with what is in reality a refutation of the 
theory which the book advances, for Malthus' review of what 
he calls the positive checks to population is simply the show- 
ing that the results w^hich he attributes to over-population act- 
ually arise from other causes. Of all the cases cited, and 
pretty much the whole globe is passed over in the survey, in 
which vice and misery check increase by Hmiting marriages 
or shortening the term of human hfe, there is not a single 
case in which the vice and misery can be traced to an actual 
increase in the number of mouths over the power of the ac- 
companying hands to feed them ; but in every case the vice 
and misery are shown to spring either from unsocial igno- 
rance and rapacity or from bad government, unjust laws or 
destructive warfare. 

Nor what Malthus failed to show has any one since him 
shown. The globe may be surveyed and history may be 
reviewed in vain for any instance of a considerable country* 
in which poverty and want can be fairly attributed to the 
pressure of an increasing population. Whatever be the possi- 
ble dangers involved in the power of human increase, they 
have never yet appeared. \Vhatever may sometime be, this 
never yet has been the evil that has afflicted mankind. Pop- 
ulation always tending to overpass the limit of subsistence ! 
How is it, then, that this globe of ours, after all the thousands, 
and it is now thought millions, of years that m.an has been 
upon the earth, is yet so thinly populated ? How is it, then, 
that so many of the hives of human life are now deserted — 
that once cultivated fields are rank with jungle, and the wild 
beast licks her cubs where once were busy haunts of men ? 

It is a fact, that, as we count our increasing millions, we 
are apt to lose sight of — nevertheless it is a fact — that in 
what we know of the world'- history decadence of population 
is as common as increase. Whether the aggregate populaUon. 
of the earth is now greater than at any previous epoch is a 
speculation which can only deal with guesses. Since Montes- 
quieu, in the early part of the last century, asserted (what 
was then probably the prevailing impression) that the 'popula- 
tion of the earth had, since the Christian era, greatly de- 
clined, opinion has run the other way. But the tendency of 

* I say considerable country, because there va^j be small islands, such as Pit- 
cairn's Island, cut off from cornmunication with the rest of the world and conse- 
quently from the exchanges which are necessary to the improved modes of produc- 
tion resorted to as population becomes dense, which may seem to offer examples in 
point. A moment's reflection, however, will show that these exceptional cases are 
oot in pou-.i. 



8o POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE, 

recent investigation and exploration has been to give greatei 
credit to what have been deemed the exaggerated accounts of 
ancient historians and travelers, and to reveal indications of 
denser populations and more advanced civilizations than had 
before been suspected, as well as of a higher antiquity in the 
human race. And in basing our estimates of population 
upon the development of trade, the advance of the arts, and 
the size of cities, we are apt to underrate the density of popu- 
lation which the intensive cultivations, characteristic of the 
earlier civilizations, are capable of maintaining — especially 
where irrigation is resorted to. As we may see from the 
closely cultivated districts of China and Europe a very great 
population of simple habits can readily exist with very little 
commerce and a much lower stage of those arts in which mod- 
ern progress has been most marked, and without that tendency 
to concentrate in cities which modern populations show. * 

Be this as it may, the only continent which we can be sure 
now contains a larger population than ever before is Europe. 
But this is not true of all parts of Europe. Certainly Greece, 
the Mediterranean Islands, and Turkey in Europe, probably 
Italy, and possibly Spain, have contained larger populations 
than now, and this may be likewise true of Northwestern and 
parts of Central and Eastern Europe. 

America also has increased in population during the time 
we know of it ; but this increase is not so great as is popu- 
larly supposed, some estimates giving to Peru alone at the 
time of the discovery a greater population than now exists on 
the whole continent of South America. And all the indica- 
tions are that previous to the discovery the population of 
America had been declining. What great nations have run 
their course, what empires have arisen and fallen in "4:hat 
new world which is the old," we can only imagine. But frag- 
ments of massive ruins yet attest a grander pre-Incan civiliza- 
tion ; amid the tropical forests of Yucatan and Central Amer- 
ica are the remains of great cities forgotten ere the Spanish 
conquest ; Mexico, as Cortez found it, showed the superimpo- 
sition of barbarism upon a higher social development, while 
through a great part of what is nov/ the United States are 

* As may be seen from the map in H. H. Bancroft's " Native Races,'' the State 
of Vera Cruz is not one of those parts of Mexico noticeable for its antiquities. Yet 
Hugo Fink, of Cordova, writing- to the Smithsonian Institute (Reports 1870), says 
there is hardly a foot in the whole State in which by excavation either a broken otj- 
sixHan knife or a broken piece of pottery is not found ; that the whole country is 
intersected with parallel lines of btoucs hiteuded to keep the earth from washing-away 
jp the rainy season, which show that even the very poorest land was put into requi- 
sinon and that it is impossible to resist ths conclusion that the ancient populatior 
v^'as at least as dense as it is at present in the most populous districts of Europe, 



INFERENCES FROM FACTS. 8] 

scattered mounds which prove a once relatively dense popu- 
lation, and here and there, as in the Lake Superior copper 
mines, are traces of higher arts than were known to the Indi' 
ans with whom the whites came in contact. 

As to Africa there can be no question. Northern Africa 
can contain but a fraction of the population that it had in 
ancient times ; the Nile Valley once held an enormously 
greater population than now, while south of the Sahara there 
is nothing to show increase within historic times, and wide- 
spread depopulation was certainly caused by the slave trade. 

As for Asia, which even now contains more than half the 
human race, though it is not much more than half as densely 
populated as Europe, there are indications that both India 
and China once contained larger populations than now, while 
that great breeding ground of men from which issued swarms 
which overran both countries and sent great waves of people 
rolling upon Europe, must have been once far more populous. 
But the most marked change is in Asia Minor, Syria, Babylo- 
nia, Persia, and in short that vast district which yielded to 
the conquering arms of Alexander. Where were once great 
cities and teeming populations are now squalid villages and 
barren wastes. 

It is somewhat strange that among all the theories that 
have been raised, that of a fixed quantity to human life on 
this earth has not been broached. It would at least better 
accord with historical facts than that of the constant ten- 
dency of population to outrun subsistence. It is clear that 
population has here ebbed and there flowed ; its centres have 
changed ; new nations have arisen and old nations declined ; 
sparsely settled districts have become populous and populous 
districts have lost their population ; but as far back as we can 
go without abandoning ourselves wholly to inference, there is 
nothing to show continuous increase, or even to clearly show 
an aggregate increase from tim^e to time. The advance of 
the pioneers of peoples has, so far as we can discern, nevei 
been into uninhabited lands — their march has always been a 
battle with some other people previously in possession ; 
behind dim empires vaguer ghosts of empire loom. That 
the population of the world must have had its small beginnings 
we confidently infer, for we know that there was a geologic 
era when human life could not have existed, and we cannot 
believe that men sprang up all at once, as from the dragon 
teeth sowed by Cadmus ; yet through long vistas, where his- 
tory, tradition and antiquities shed a light that is lost in faint 



T52 POPULATION. AND SUBSISTENCE. 

glimmers, we may discern large populations. And during 
these long periods the principle of population has n.ot been 
strong enough to fully settle the world, or even so far as we 
can clearly see to materially increase its aggregate population. 
Compared with its capacities to sujDport human life the earth 
as a whole is yet most sparsely populated. 

There is another broad, general fact which cannot fail to 
strike any one who, thinking of this subject, extends his 
view beyond modern society. Malthusianism predicates a 
universal law — that the natural tendency of population is to 
outrun subsistence. If there be such a law; it must, where- 
ever population has attained a certain density, become as 
obvious as any of the great natural laws which have been 
everywhere recognized. How is it, then, that neither in classi- 
cal creeds and codes, nor in those of the Jev/s, the Egyptians, 
the Hindoos, the Chinese, nor any of the peoples who have 
lived in close association and have built up creeds and codes, 
do we find any injunctions to the practice of the prudential 
restraints of Malthus ; but that on the contrary, the wisdom 
of the centuries, the religions of the world, have always 
inculcated ideas of civic and religious duty tlie very reverse 
of those which the current political economy enjoins, and 
which Annie Besant is now trying to popularize in England? 

And it must be remembered that there have been societies 
in which the community guaranteed to every member employ- 
ment and subsistence. John Stuart Mill says (Book 11, Chap. 
XII, Sec. 2,) that to do this without state regulation of mar- 
riages and births, would be to produce a state of general mis- 
ery and degradation. " These consequences," he says, " have 
been so often and so clearly pointed out by authors of reputa- 
tion, that ignorance of them on the part of educated per- 
sons is no longer pardonable." Yet in Sparta, in Pern, in 
Paraguay, as in the industrial communities which appear 
almost everywhere to have constituted the primitive agricul- 
tural organization, there seems to have been an utter ignorance 
of these dire consequences of a natural tendency. 

Besides the broad, general facts I have cited, there are 
facts of common knowledge which seem utterly inconsistent 
with such an overpowering tendency to multiplication. If the 
tendency to reproduce be so strong as Malthusianism sup- 
poses, how is it that families so often become extinct — fami- 
lies in which want is unknown 1 How is it, then, that vvhen 
every premium is offered by hereditary titles and hereditar} 
possessions, not alone to the principle of increase, but to Xht 



INFERENCES FROM FACTS. 83 

preservation of genealogical knowledge and the proving up 
of descent, that in such an aristocracy as that of England, so 
many peerages should lapse, and the House of Lords only be 
kept up from century to century by fresh creations ? 

For the solitary example of a family that has survived any 
great lapse of time, even though assured of subsistence and 
honor, we must go to unchangeable China. The descendants 
of Confucius still exist there, and enjoy peculiar privileges 
and consideration, forming, in fact, the only hereditary aris- 
tocracy. On the presumption that population tends to double 
every twenty-five years, they should, in 2150 years after the 
death of Confucius, have amounted to 859,559, 193, io6j- 
709,670,198,710,528 souls. Instead of any such unimagin- 
able number, the descendants of Confucius, 2150 years after 
his death, in the reign of Kanghi, numbered 11,000 males, 
or say 22,000 souls. This is quite a discrepancy, and is the 
more striking when it is remembered that the esteem in which 
this family is held on account of their ancestor, " the Most 
Holy Ancient Teacher," has prevented the operation of the 
positi\ .eck, while the maxims of Confucius inculcate any- 
thing 3 \ the prudential check. 

Yet, .L may be said, that even this increase is a great one. 
Twent/-two thousand persons descended from a single pair in 
2150 ears is far short of the Malthusian rate. Nevertheless, 
it is suggestive of possible overcrowding. 

But consider. Increase of descendants does not show in- 
crease of population. It could only do this when the breed- 
ing was in and in. Smith and his wife have a son and daugh- 
ter, who marry respectively some one else's daughter and son, 
and each have two children. Smith and his wife would thus 
have four grandchildren ; but there would be in the one gen- 
eration no greater number than in the other — each child would 
have four grandparents. And supposing this process were to 
go on, the line of descent might constantly spread out into 
hundreds, thousands and millions ; but in each generation ot 
descendants there would be no more individuals than in any 
previous generation of ancestors. The web of generations is 
like lattice-work or the diagonal threads in cloth. Commenc- 
ing at any point at the top, the eye follows lines which at the 
bottom widely diverge ; but beginning at any point at the 
bottom, the lines diverge in the same way to the top. Hov\^ 
many children a man may have is problematical. But that he 
had two parents is certain, and that these again had two par- 
ents each is also certain. Follow this geometrical progression 



§4 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

through a few generations, and see if it does not lead to quite 
as " striking consequences " as Mr. Malthus' peopling of the 
solar systems. 

But from such considerations as these let us advance to a 
more definite inquiry. I assert that the cases commonly cited 
as instances of over-population will not bear investigation. 
India, China, and Ireland furnish the strongest of these cases. 
In each of these countries, large numbers have perished by 
starvation and large classes are reduced to abject misery or 
compelled to emigrate. But is this really due to over-population ? 

Comparing total population with total area, India and 
China are far from being the most densely populated coun- 
tries of the world. According to the estimates of MM. 
Behm and Wagner, the population of India is but 132 to the 
square mile and that of China 119, whereas Saxony has a 
population of 442 to the square mile ; Belgium 441 ; England 
422 ; the Netherlands 291 ; Italy 234 and Japan 233.* There 
are thus in both countries large areas unused or not fully 
used, but even in their more densely populated districts there 
can be no doubt that either could maintain a much greater 
population in a much higher degree of comfort, for in both 
countries is labor applied to production in the rudest and 
most inefficient ways, and in both countries great natural 
resources are wholly neglected. This arises from no innate 
deficiency in the people, for the Hindoo, as comparative 
philology has shown, is of our own blood, and China 
possessed a high degree of civilization and the rudiments of 
the most important modern inventions when our ancestors 
were wandering savages. It arises from the form which the 
social organization has in both countries taken, which has 
shackled productive power and robbed industry of its 
reward. 

In India from time immemorial, the working classes have 
been ground down by exactions and oppressions into a 
condition of helpless and hopeless degradation. For ages 
and ages the cultivator of the soil has esteemed himself 
happy if, of his produce, the extortion of the strong hand 
left him enough to support life and furnish seed ; capital 
could nowhere be safely accumulated or to any considerable 

* 1 take these figures from the Smithsonian Report for 1873, leaving out deci- 
mals. MM. Behm and Wagner put the population of China at 446^500,000, though 
there are some who contend that it does not exceed i5o.<x)o.ooo. They put the 
population of Hither India at 206,225,580, giving 132.29 to the square mile; of 
Ceylon at 2,405,287 or 97.36 to the square mile ; of Further India at 21,018,062, of 
27.94 to the square mile. They estimate the population of the world at 1,377,000,000, 
an average of 26.64 to the square mile. 



INFERENCES FROM FACTS. 85 

extent be used to assist production ; all wealth that could be 
v^^rung from the people was in the possession of princes who 
were little better than robber chiefs quartered on the country, 
or in that of their farmers or favorites, and was wasted in 
useless or worse than useless luxury, while religion, sunken 
into an elaborate and terrible superstition, tyrannized over 
the mind as physical force did over the bodies of men. 
Under these conditions, the only arts that could advance were 
those that ministered to the ostentation and luxury of the 
great. The elephants of the rajah blazed with gold of 
exquisite workmanship, and the umbrellas that symbolized 
his regal power glittered with gems ; but the plow of the 
ryot was only a sharpened stick. The ladies of the rajah's 
harem wrapped themselves in muslins so fine as to take the 
name of woven wind, but the tools of the artisan were of 
the poorest and rudest description, and commerce could only 
be carried on as it were by stealth. 

Is it not clear that this tyranny and insecurity have 
produced the want and starvation of India ; and not, as 
according to Buckle, the pressure of population upon sub- 
sistence that has produced the want, and the want the 
tyranny.* Says the Rev. William Tennant, a chaplain in the 
service of the East India Company, writing in 1796, two 
years before the publication of the " Essay on Population : " 

"When we reflect upon the great fertility of Hindostan, it is amazing to con- 
sider the frequency of famine. It is evidently not owing to any sterility of soil or 
climate ; the evil must be traced to some political cause, and it requires but little 
penetration to discover it in the avarice and extortion of the various governments. 
The great spur to industry, that of security, is taken away. Hence no man raises 
more grain than is barely sufficient for himself, and the firsT unfavorable season 
produces a famine. 

"■ The Mogul governmer. *■ at no period offered full security to the prince, still 
less to his vassals ; and to peasants the most scanty protection of all. It was a 
continued tissue of violence and insurrection, treachery and punishment, under 
which neither commerce nor the arts could prosper, nor agriculture assume the 
appearance of a system. Its downfall gave rise to a state still more afflictive, since 
anarchy is worse than misrule. The Mohammedan government, wretched as it 
was, the European nations have not the merit of over-turning. It fell beneath the 
"weight of its own corruption, and had already been Succeeded by the multifar- 
ious tyranny of petty chiefs, whose right to govern consisted in their treason to the 
state, and whose exactions on the peasants were as boundless as their avarice. 
The rents to government were, and, where natives rule, still are, levied twice a 
year by a merciless banditti, under the semblance of an army, who wantonly 
destroy or carry off whatever part of the produce may satisfy their caprice or satiate 
their avidity, after having hunted the ill-fated peasants from the villages to the 
woods. Any attempt of the peasants to defend their persons or property within the 
mud walls of their villages only calls for the more signal vengeance on those useful, 
but ill-fated mortals. They are then surrounded and attacked with musketry and 
field pieces till resistance ceases, when the survivors are sold, and their habitations 

* History of Civilization. Vol. I, Chap. 2. In this chapter Buckle has collected 
a great deal of evidence of the oppression and degradation of the people of India 
from the most remote times, a condition which, blinded by the Malthusian doctrine 
he has accepted and made the cornerstone of his theory of the development of 
civilization, he attributes to the ease with which food can there be produced. 



86 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

burnt and leveled with the ground. Hence you --.vill frequently meet with the ryots 
gathering up the scattered remnants of what had yesterday been their habitation, \i 
fear has permitted them to return ; but oftener the ruins are seen smoking, after a 
- second visitation of this kind, without the appearance of a human being to inter- 
rupt the awful silence of desolation. This description does not apply to the 
Mohammedan chieftains alone ; it is equally applicable to the Kajahs in the districts 
governed by Hindoos."* 

To this merciless rapacity, which would have produced 
want and famine were the population but one to a square 
mile and the land a Garden of Eden, succeeded, in the first 
era of British rule in India, as merciless a rapacity, backed 
by a far more irresistible power. Says Macaulay, in his 
essay on Lord Clive : 

" Enormous fortunes were rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while millions ol 
human beings were reduced to the extremity of v^retchedness. They had been 
accustomed to live under tyranny but never under tyranny like this. They found 
the little finger of the Company thicker than the loins of Surajah Dowlah. 
It resembled the government of evil genii, ra.ther than the government of human 
tyrants. Sometimes they submitted in patient misery. Sometimes they fled from 
the white man as their fathers had been used to fly from the Maharatta, and the 
palanquin of the English traveler was often carried through silent villages and 
towns that the report of his approach had made desolate." 

"^pon horrors that Macaulay thus but touches, the vivid 
eloquence of Burke throws a stronger light — whole districts 
surrendered to the unrestrained cupidity of the worst of 
human kind, poverty-stricken peasants fiendishly tortured to 
compel them to give up their little hoards, and once populous 
tracts turned into deserts. 

- But the lawless license of early English rule has been long 
restrained. To all that vast population the strong hand of 
England has given a more than Roman peace ; the just 
principles of English law have been extended by an elaborate 
system of codes and. law officers designed to secure to the 
humblest of these abject peoples the rights of Anglo-Saxon 
freemen; the whole peninsula has been intersected by 
railways, and great irrigation works have been constructed. 
Yet, with increasing frequency, famine has succeeded famine, 
raging with greater intensity over wider areas. 

Is not this a demonstration of the Malthusian theory ? 
Does it not show that no matter how much the possibilities 
of subsistence are increased, population still continues to 
press upon it ? Does it not show, as Malthus ' contended, 
that, to shut up the sluices by Vv^hich superabundant popula- 
tion is carried off, is but to compel nature to open new ones, 
and that unless the sources of human increase are checked by 
prudential regulation, the alternative of Vv'ar is famine ? This 
has been the othodox explanation. But the truth, as may be 

* Indian Recreations. By Rev. Wm, Tennant. London, 1804. Vol. I, Sec, 
XXXIX. 



TNFERENCES FROM FACTS. 87 

seen in the facts brought forth in recent discussions of 
Indian affairs in tlie English periodicals, is that these famines, 
which have been, and are now sweeping away their millions, 
are no more due to the pressure of population upon the 
natural limits of subsiste>nce than was the desolation of the 
Carnatic when Hyder All's horsemen burst upon it in a 
whirlwind of destruction 

The millions of India have bowed their necks beneath the 
yokes of many conquerers, but worst of all is the stead)!^, 
grinding weight of English domination — a weight which is 
literally crushing millions out of existence, and, as shown by 
English writers, is inevitably tending to a most frightful and 
widespread catastrophe, Odier conquerors have lived in the 
land, and, though bad and tyrannous in their rule, have 
understood and been understood by the people ; but India 
now is like a great estate owned by an absentee and alien 
landlord. A most expensive military and civil establishment 
is kept up, managed and officered by Englishmen who regard 
India but as a place of temporary exile ; and an enormous 
sum, estimated as at least ;!^2o, 000,000 annually (raised from a 
population where laborers are in many places glad in good 
tmies to work for i/4d. to 4d. a day), is drained away to 
England in the shape of remittances, pensions, home charges 
of the government, etc. — a tribute for which there is no 
return. The immense sums lavished on railroads have, as 
shown by the returns, been economically unproductive ; the 
great irrigation works are for the most part costly failures. 
In large parts of India the English, in their desire to create 
a class of landed proprietors, turned over the soil in absolute 
possession to hereditary tax-gatherers, who rack-rent the 
cultivators most mercilessly. In other parts, where the rent 
is still taken by the State in the shape of a land tax, assess- 
ments are so high, and taxes are collected so relentlessly, as 
to drive the ryots, who get but the most scanty living in good 
seasons, mto the clav/s of money-lenders, who are, if possible, 
even more rapacious than the zemindars. Upon salt, an 
article of prime necessity everywhere, and of especial neces- 
sity where food is almost exclusively vegetable, a tax of nearly 
twelve hundred per cent, is imposed, so that its various 
industrial uses are prohibited, and large bodies of the people 
cannot get enough to keep either themselves or their cattle in 
health. Belov/ the English officials are a horde of native 
employees who oppress and extort. The effect of English 
law, with its rigid rules, and, to the native, mysterious 



88 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

proceedings, has been but to put a potent instrument of 
plunder into the hands of tlie native money lenders, from 
whom the peasants are compelled to borrow on the most 
extravagant terms to meet their taxes, and to whom they are 
easily induced to give obligations of which they know not 
the meaning. " We do not care for the people of India," 
writes Florence Nightingale, with what seems like a sob. 
" The saddest sight to be seen in the East — nay, probably in 
the world — is the peasant of our Eastern Empire." And shei 
goes on to show the causes of the terrible famines, in taxa- 
tion which takes from the cultivators the very means of culti- 
vation and the actual slavery to which the ryots are reduced 
as " the consequences of our own laws ;" producing in " the 
most fertile country in the world, a grinding, chronic, semi- 
starvation in many places where what is called famine does 
not exist."* " The famines which have been devastating 
India," says H. M. Hyndman,t " are in the main financial 
famines. Men and women cannot get food, because they 
cannot save the money to buy it. Yet we are driven, so we 
say, to tax these people more." And he shows how, even 
from famine stricken districts, food is exported in payment of 
taxes, and how the whole of India is subjected to a steady 
and exhausting drain, which, combined with the enormous 
expenses of government, is making the population year by 
year poorer. The exports of India consist almost exclusively 
of agricultural products. For at least one-third of these, as 
Mr. Hyndman shov/s, no return whatever is received, they 
represent tribute — remittances made by Englishmen in India, 
or expenses of the English branch of the Indian govern- 
ment. X And for the rest, the return is for the most part 
government stores, or articles of comfort and luxury used by 
the English masters of India. He shows that the expenses 
of government have been enormously increased under 
Imperial rule ; that the relentless taxation of a population so 
miserably poor that the masses are not more than half fed, 

* Miss Nightingale (The People of India, in " Nineteenth Century " for 
August, 1878) gives instances, which she says represent millions of cases, of the 
state of peonage to which the cultivators of Southern India have been reduced 
through the facilities aiforded by the Civil Courts to the frauds and oppressions of 
money lenders and minor native officials. " Our Civil Courts are regarded as 
institutions for enabling the rich to ^rind the faces of the poor, and many are faia 
to seek a refuge from their jurisdiction within native territory," says Sir David 
Wedderburn, in an article on Protected Princes in India, in a previous (July) 
number of the same magazine, in which he also gives a native State, where taxation 
is comparatively light, as an instance of the most prosperous population of India. 

t See articles m " Nineteenth Century " for October, 1878, and March, 1879. 

X Prof. Fawcett in a recent article on the Proposed Loans to India, calls 
attention to such items as ^1,200 for outfit and passage of a member of the Governof 
General's Council ; ;^2,45o for outfit and passage of Bishops of Calcutta and Bombay. 



IIVFERENCES FROM FACTS. 89 

is robbing them of their scanty means for cultivating the soil; 
that the number of bullocks (the Indian draft animal) is 
decreasing, and the scanty implements of culture being given 
up to money lenders, from whom " we, a business people, are 
forcing the cultivators to borrow at 12, 24, 60 per cent.* to 
build and pay the interest on the cost of vast public works, 
which have never paid nearly five per cent." Says Mr. 
Hyndman: " The truth is that Indian society as a whole has 
been frightfully impoverished under our rule, and that the 
process is now going on at an exceedingly rapid rate " — a 
■statement which cannot be doubted, in view of the facts 
presented not only by such writers as I have referred to, but 
by Indian officials themselves. The very efforts made by the 
government to alleviate famines do, by the increased taxation 
imposed, but intensify and extend their real cause. Although 
in the recent famine in Southern India six millions of people, 
it is estimated, perished of actual starvation, and the great 
mass of those who survived were actually stripped, yet the 
taxes were not remitted and the salt tax, already prohibitory 
to the great bulk of these poverty-stricken people, was 
increased forty per cent., just as after the terrible Bengal 
famine in 1770 the revenue was actually driven up, by raising 
assessments upon tlie survivors and rigorously enforcing 
collection. 

In India now, as in India in past times, it is only the most 
superficial view that can attribute want and starvation to 
pressure of population upon the ability of the land to produce 
subsistence. Could the cultivators retain their little capital — 
could they be released from the drain which, even in non- 
famine years, reduces great masses of them to a scale of 
living not merely below what is deemed necessary for the 
sepoys, but what English hum.anity gives to the prisoners in 
the jails — reviving industry, assuming more productive forms, 
would undoubtedly suffice to keep a much greater population. 
There are still in India great areas imcultivated, vast mineral 
resources untouched, and it is certain that the population of 
India has not reached, as within historical times it never has 
reached, the real limit of the soil to furnish subsistence, or even 
the point where this power begins to decline with the in- 
creasing drafts made upon it. The real cause of want in 

* Florence Nightingale says 100 per cent, is common, and even then the 
cultivator is robbed in ways which she illustrates. It is hardly necessary to say 
that these rates, like those of the pawnbroker, are not interest in the economic sens© 
of the term. 



90 POPULA TION- AND SUBSISTENCE. 

India has been, and yet is, the rapacity of man not the nig^ 
gardliness of nature. 

What is true of India is true of China. Densely populated 
as China is in many parts, that the extreme poverty of the 
Io\ver classes is to be attributed to similar causes to those 
which have operated in India, and not to too great population 
is shown by many facts. Insecurity prevails, production goes 
on under the greatest disadvantages, and exchange is closely 
fettered. Where the government is a succession of squeeziiigs, 
and security for capital of any sort must be purchased of a 
mandarin ; where men's shoulders are the great reliance for 
inland transportation ; where the junk is obliged to be con- 
structed so as to unfit it for a sea-boat ; where piracy is a 
regular trade, and robbers often march in regiments, poverty 
would prevail and the failure of a crop result in famine, no 
matter how sparse the population.* That China is capable 
of supporting a much greater population is shown not only by 
the great extent of uncultivated land to which all travelers 
testify, but by the immense unworked mineral deposits which 
are there known to exist, China, for instance, is said to 
contain the largest and finest deposit of coal yet anywhere 
discovered. How much the working of these coal beds would 
add to the ability to support a greater population, may readily 
be imagined. Coal is not food, it is true.; but its production is 
equivalent to the production of food. For, not only may coal be 
exchanged for food, as is done in all mining districts, but the 
force evolved by its consumption may be used in the produc- 
tion of food, or may set "labor free for the production of 
food. 

Neither in India nor China, therefore, can poverty and 
starvation be charged to the pressure of population against 
subsistence. It is not dense population, but the causes which 
prevent social organization from taking its natural develop- 
ment and labor from securing its full return, that keep millions 
just on the verge of starvation, and every now and again force 
millions beyond it. That the Hindoo laborer thinks himself 
fortunate to get a handful of rice, that the Chinese eat rats 
and puppies, is no more due to the pressure of population, 
than it is due to the pressure of population that the Digger 
Indians live on grasshoppers, or the aboriginal inhabitants of 
Australia eat the v/orras found in rotten wood. 

Let me be understood. I do not mean merely to say that 
India or China could, with a more highly developed civiliza* 

* The seat of recent famine in China was not the most thickly settled districts 



INFERENCES FROM FACTS. 91 

tion, maintain a greater population, for to this any Mai thusian 
would agree. The Malthusian doctrine does not deny that 
an advance in the productive arts would' permit a greater pop- 
ulation to find subsistence. But the Malthusian theory affirms 
— and this is its essence — that, whatever be the capacity for 
production, the natural tendency of population is to come up 
with it, and, in the endeavor to press beyond it, to produce, 
to use the phrase of Malthus, that degree of vice and misery 
which is necessary to prevent further increase ; so that as 
productive power is increased, population will correspondingly 
increase, and in a little time produce the same results as be^ 
fore. What I say is this : that nowhere is there any instance 
which will support this theory ; that nowhere can want be 
properly attributed to the pressure of population against the 
power to procure subsistence in the then existing degree of 
human knowledge ; that everywhere the vice and misery attrib- 
uted to over-population can be traced to the warfare, tyranny, 
and oppression which prevent knowledge from being utilized 
and deny the security essential to production. The reason 
why the natural increase of population does not produce want, 
we shall come to hereafter. The fact that it has not yet any- 
where done so, is what we are now concerned with. This fact 
is obvious with regard to India and China. It will be obvious, 
too, wherever we trace to their causes the results which on 
superficial view are often taken to proceed from over-popula- 
tion. 

Ireland, of all European countries, furnishes the great stock 
example of over population. The extreme poverty of the 
peasantry and the low rate of wages there prevailing, the Irish 
famine and Irish emigration, are constantly alluded to as a 
demonstration of the Malthusian theory worked out under the 
eyes of the civilized world. I doubt if a more striking instance 
can be cited of the power of a pre-accepted theory to blind men 
as to the true relations of facts. The truth is, and it lies on the 
surface, that Ireland has never yet had a population v/hich the 
natural povv^ers of the country, in the existing state of the 
productive arts, could not have maintained in ample comfort. 
At the period of her greatest population (1840-45) Ireland 
contained something over eight millions of people. But a 
very large proportion of them managed merely to exist — 
lodging in miserable cabins, clothed with miserable rags, and 
with but potatoes for their staple food. When the potato 
blight came, they died by thousands. But was it the inability 
of the soil to support so large a population that compelled 



92 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

SO many to live in this miserable way, and exposed them to 
starvation on the failure of a single root crop ? On the con- 
trary, it was the same remorseless rapacity that robbed the 
Indian ryot of the fruits of his toil and left him to starve 
where nature offered plenty. A merciless banditti of tax- 
gathers did not march through the land plundering and 
torturing, but the laborer was just as effectively stripped by 
as merciless a horde of landlords, among whom the soil had 
been divided as their absolute possession, regardless of any 
rights of those who lived upon it. 

Consider the conditions of production under which this 
eight millions managed to live until the potato blight came. 
It was a condition to which the words used by Mr. Tennant 
in reference to India may as appropriately be applied — " the 
great spur to industry, that of security, was taken away." 
Cultivation was for the most part carried on by tenants at 
will, who, even if the rack-rents which they were forced to 
pay had permitted them, did not dare to make improvements 
which would have been but the signal for an increase of rent. 
Labor was thus applied in the most inefficient and wasteful 
manner, and labor was dissipated in aimless idleness that, 
with any security for its fruits, would have been applied 
unremittingly. But even under these conditions, it is a matter 
of fact that Ireland did more than support eight m'Uions. 
For when her population was at its highest, Ireland was a 
food-exporting country. Even during the famine, grain and 
meat and butter and cheese were carted for exportation along 
roads lined with the starving and past trenches into which the 
dead were piled. For these exports of food, or at least for a 
great pait of them, there was no return. So far as the people 
of Ireland were concerned, the food thus exported might as 
well have been burned up or thrown into the sea, or never 
produced. It went not as an exchange, but as a tribute — to 
pay the rent of absentee landlords ; a levy wrung from 
producers by those who in no wise contributed to production. 

Had this food been left those who raised it; had the 
cultivators of the soil been permitted to retain and use the 
capital their labor produced ; had security stimulated industry 
and permitted the adoption of economical methods, there 
would have been enough to support in bounteous comfort 
ihe largest population Ireland ever had, and the potato 
blight might have come and gone without stinting a single 
human being of a full meal. For it was not the imprudence 
"of Irish peasants," as English economists coldly say, which 



INFERENCES FROM FACTS. 93 

induced them to make the potato the staple of their food. 
Irish emigrants, when they can get other things, do not hve 
upon the potato, and certainly in the United States the 
prudence of the Irish character, in endeavoring to lay by 
something for a rainy day, is remarkable. They lived on the 
potato, because rack-rents stripped everything else from them. 
The truth is, that the poverty and misery of Ireland have 
never been fairly attributable to over-population. 

McCulloch, writing in 1838, says, in Note IV to " Wealth 
of Nations :" 

" The wonderful density of population in Ireland is the immediate cause of the 
abject poverty and depressed condition of the great bulk of the people. It is not 
too much to say that there are at present more than double the persons in Ireland 
it is, with its existing means of production, able either fully to employ or to maintain 
in a moderate state of comfort. 

As in 1841 the population of Ireland was given as 8,1 75,- 
124, we may set it down in 1838 as about eight millions. 
Thus, to change McCulloch's negative into an affirmative, Ire- 
land would, according to the over-population theory, have been 
able to fully employ and maintain in a moderate state of 
comfort something less than four million persons. Now in 
the early part of the preceding century, when Dean Swift 
wrote his " Modest Proposal," the population of Ireland, was 
about two millions. As neither the means nor the arts of 
production had perceptibly advanced in Ireland during the 
interval, then — if the abject poverty and depressed condition 
of the Irish people in 1838 were attributable to over-popula- 
tion — there should, upon McCulloch's own admission, have 
been in Ireland in 1727 more than full employment, and 
much more than a moderate state of comfort, for the whole 
two millions. Yet, instead of this being the case, the abject 
poverty and depressed condition of the Irish people in 1727 
were such, that, with burning, blistering irony, Dean Swift 
proposed to relieve surplus population by cultivating a taste 
for roasted babies, and bringing yearly to the shambles, as 
dainty food for the rich, 100,000 Irish infants. 

It is difficult for one who has been looking over the litera- 
ture of Irish misery, as while writing this chapter I ha\'e 
been doing, to speak in decorous terms of the complacent 
attribution of Irish want and suffering to over-population 
which are to be found even in the works of such high-minded 
men as Mill and Buckle. I know of nothing better calculated 
to make the blood boil than the cold accounts of the grasping, 
grinding tyranny to which the Irish people have been 
subjected, and to which, and not to any inabihty of the 



94 POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

land to support its population, Irish pauperism and Irish 
famine are to be attributed; and were it not for the enervat- 
ing effect which the history of the world proves to be every- 
where the result of abject poverty, it would be difficult to 
resist something like a feeling ot contempt for a race who, 
stung by such wrongs, have only occasionally murdered a 
landlord ! 

Whether over-population ever did cause pauperism and 
'Starvation, may be an open question; but the pauperism and 
starvation of Ireland can no more be attributed to this cau^e 
than can the slave trade be attributed to the over-population 
of Africa, or the destruction of Jerusalem to the inability of 
subsistence to keep pace with reproduction. Had Ireland 
been by nature a grove of bananas and bread-fruit, had her 
coasts been lined by the gua,no- deposits of the Chinchas, and 
the sun of lower latitudes warmed into more abundant life 
her moist soil, the social conditions that have prevailed there 
would still have brought forth poverty and starvation. How 
could there fail to be pauperism and famine in a country 
where rack-rents wrested from the cultivator of the soil all 
the produce of his labor except just enough to maintain life 
in good seasons; where tenure at will forbade improvements 
and removed incentive to any but the most wasteful and 
poverty-stricken culture; where the tenant dared not 
accumulate capital, even if he could get it, for fear the land- 
lord would demand it in the rent; where in fact he was an 
abject slave, who, at the nod of a human being like himself, 
might at any tnne be driven from his miserable mud cabin, a 
houseless, homeless, starving wanderer, forbidden even to 
pluck the spontaneous fruits of the earth, or to trap a wild 
hare to satisfy his hunger? No matter how sparse the pop- 
ulation, no matter what the natural resources, are not pauper- 
ism and starvation necessary consequences in a land where 
the producers of wealth are compelled to work under condi- 
tions which deprive them of hope, of self-respect, of energy, 
of thrift; where absentee landlords drain away without return 
ai least a fourth of the net produce of the soil, and when, 
besides them, a starving industry must support resident land- 
lords, with their horses and hounds, agents, jobbers, middle- 
men and bailiffs, an alien state church to insult religious 
prejudices, and an army of policemen and soldieis to overawe 
and hunt down any opposition to the iniquitous system ? Is 
it not impiety far worse than atheism to charge upon natural 
laws misery so caused ? 



INFERENCES FROM ANALOGY, 95 

What is true in these three cases will be found upon exam- 
ination true of all cases. So far as our knowledge of facts 
goes, we may safely deny that the increase of population has 
ever yet pressed upon subsistence in such away as to produce 
vice and misery; that increase of numbers has ever yet 
decreased the relative production of food. The famines of 
India, China and Ireland can no more be credited to over- 
population than the famines of sparsely populated Brazil. 
The vice and misery that come of want can no more be 
attributed to the niggardliness of Nature than can the six 
millions slain by the sword of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane's 
pyramid of skulls, or the extermination of the ancient Britons 
or of the aboriginal inhabitants of the West Indies. 



CHAPTER III. 

INFERENCES FROM ANALOGY. 

*F we turn from an examination of the facts brought for- 
ward in illustration of the Malthusian theory to consider the 
analogies by which it is supported, we shall find the same 
inconclusiveness. 

The strength of the reproductive force in the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms — such facts as that a single pair of sal- 
mon might, if preserved from their natural enemies for a few 
years, fill the ocean; that a pair of rabbits would, under the 
same circumstances, soon overrun a continent; that many 
plants scatter their seeds by the hundred fold, and some 
insects deposit thousands of eggs; and that everywhere 
through these kingdoms each species constantly tends to 
press, and when not limited by the number of its enemies, 
evidently does press, against the limits of subsistence — is 
constantly cited, from Malthus down to the text books of the 
present day, as showing that population likewise tends to 
press against subsiscence, and, when unrestrained by other 
means, its natural increase must necessarily result in such 
low wages and want, or (if that will not suffice, and the 
increase still goes on) in such actual starvation as will keep 
it within the limits of subsistence. 

But is this analogy valid ? It is from the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms that man's food is drawn, and hence the 
greater strength of the reproductive force in the vegetable 
and animal kingdoms than in man simply proves the power of 



96 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE, 

subsistence to increase faster than population. Does not the 
fact that all of the things which furnish man's subsistence 
have the power to multiply many fold — some of them many 
thousand fold, and some of them many million or even billion 
fold — -while he is only doubling his numbers, show that, let 
human beings increase to the full extent of their reproductive 
power, the increase of population can never exceed subsist- 
ence ? This is clear when it is remembered that though in 
'h^ vegetable and animal kingdoms each species, by virtue 
of its reproductive power, naturally and necessarily presses 
against the conditions which limit its further increase, yet 
these conditions are nowhere fixed and final. No species 
reaches the ultimate limit of soil, water, air, and sunshine ; 
but the actual limit of each is in the existence of other species, 
its rivals, its enemies, or its food. Thus the conditions which 
limit the existence of such of these species as afford him 
subsistence man can extend (in some cases his mere appear- 
ance will extend them), and thus the reproductive forces of 
the species which supply his wants, instead of wasting 
themselves against their former limit, start forward in his 
service at a pace which his powers of increase cannot rival. 
If he but shoot hawks, food-birds will increase ; if he but 
trap foxes the wild rabbits will multiply ; the bumble bee 
moves with the pioneer, and on the organic matter with which 
man's presence fills the rivers, fi.shes feed. 

Even if any consideration of final causes be excluded ; 
even if it be not permitted to suggest that the high and 
constant reproductive force in vegetables and animals has 
been ordered to enable them to subserve the uses of man, 
and that therefore the pressure of the lower forms of life 
against subsistence doe,*^ not tend to show that it must like^ 
wise be so with man, " the roof and crown of things ; " yet 
there still remains a distinction between man and all otlier 
forms of life that destroys the analogy. Of all living things, 
man is the only one who can gr^e play to the reproductive 
forces more powerful than his ovvn. which supply him with 
food. Beast, insect, bird, and fish take only what they find. 
Their increase is at the expense ot their food, and when they 
have reached the existing limits of food, their food must 
increase before they can increase. But unlike that of any 
other living thing, the increase of man involves the increase of 
his food. If bears instead of men had been shipped from Europe 
to the North American continent, there' would now be no more 
bears than in the time of Columbus, and possibly fewer, fc~ beai 



INFERENCES FR OM ANA LOGY. 97 

food would not have been increased nor the conditions of bear 
Hfe extended, by the bear immigration, but probably the 
reverse. But widiin the limits of the United States alone, 
there are now forty-five millions of men where then there 
were only a few hundred thousand, and yet there is now 
v/ithin that territory much more food per capita for the forty- 
five millions than there was then for the few hundred thousand. 
It is not the increase of food that has caused this increase of 
men ; but the increase of men that has brought about the 
increase of food. There is more food, simply because there 
are more men. 

Here is a difference between the animal and the man. 
Both the jay-hawk and the man eat chickens, but the more 
jay-hawks the fewer chickens, while the more men the more 
chickens. Both the seal and the man eat salmon, but when 
a seal takes a salmon there is a salmon the less, and were 
seals to increase past a certain point salmon must diminish ; 
while by placing the spawn of the salmon under favorable 
conditions man can so increase the number of salmon as to 
more than make up for all he may take, and thus, no matter 
how much men may increase, their increase need never out- 
run the supply of salmon. 

In short, while all through the vegetable and animal king- 
doms the limit of subsistence is independent of the thing 
subsisted, with man the limit of subsistence is within the final 
limits of earth, air, water, and sunshine, dependent upon man 
himself. And this being the case, the analogy which it is 
sought to draw between the lower forms of life and man man- 
ifestly fails. While vegetables and animals do press against 
the limits of subsistence, man cannot press against the limits 
of his subsistence until the limits of the globe are reached. 
Observe, this is not merely true of the whole, but of all the 
parts. As we cannot reduce the level of the smallest bay or 
harbor without reducing the level not merely of the ocean with 
which it communicates, but of all the seas and oceans of the 
world, so the limit of subsistence in any particular place is 
not the physical limit of that place, but the physical limit of 
the globe. Fifty square miles of soil will in the present state 
of the productive arts yield subsistence for only some thous- 
ands of people, but on the fifty square miles which comprise 
the city of London some three and a half millions of people 
are maintained, and subsistence increases as population in- 
creases. So far as the limit of subsistence is concerned, 
London may grow to a population of a hundred millions, or 

7 



98 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

five hundred millions, or a thousand millions, for she draws 
for subsistence upon the whole globe, and the limit which 
subsistence sets to her growth in population is the limit of 
the globe to furnish food for its inhabitants. 

But here will arise another idea from which the Malthusian 
theory derives great support — that of the diminishing pro- 
ductiveness of land. As-conclusively proving the law of di- 
minishing productiveness it is said in the current treatises 
that were it not true that beyond a certain point land yields 
less and less to additional applications of labor and capital, 
increasing population would not cause any extension of culti- 
vation, but that all the increased supplies needed could and 
would be raised without taking into cultivation any fresh 
ground. Asser.t to this seems to involve assent to the doc- 
trine that the difficulty of obtaining subsistence must increase 
with increasing population. 

But I think the necessity is only in seeming. If the prop- 
osition be analyzed it will be seen to belong to a class that 
depend for validity upon an implied or suggested qualifica- 
tion — a truth relatively, which taken absolutely becomes a 
non-truth. For that man cannot exhaust or lessen the pow- 
ers of nature follows from the indestructibility of matter and 
the persistence of force. Production and consumption are 
only relative terms. Speaking absolutely, man neither pro- 
duces nor consumes. The whole human race, were they to 
labor to infinity, could not make this rolling sphere one atom 
heavier or one atom lighter, could not add to or diminish by 
one iota the sum of the forces whose everlasting circling pro- 
duces all motion and sustains all life. As the water that we 
take from the ocean must again return to the ocean, so the 
food we take from the reservoirs of nature is, from the mo- 
ment we take it, on its way back to those reservoirs. What 
we draw from a limited extent of land may temporarily re- 
duce the productiveness of that land, because the return may 
be to other land, or may be divided between that land and 
other land, or perhaps, all land ; but this possibility lessens 
with increasing area, and ceases when the whole globe is con- 
sidered. That the earth could maintain a thousand billions 
of people as easily as a thousand millions is a necessary de- 
duction from the manifest truths that, at least so far as our 
agency is concerned, matter is eternal and force must forever 
continue to act. Life does not use up the forces that main- 
tain life. We come into the material universe bringing 
nothing ; we take nothing away when we depart. The humao 



INFERENCES FROM ANALOGY. 99 

being, physically considered, is but a transient form of mat- 
ter, a changing mode of motion. The matter remains and 
the force persists. Nothing is lessened, nothing is weakened. 
And from this it follows that the limit to the population of 
the globe can only be the limit of space. 

Now this limitation of space — this danger that the human 
race may increase be3'ond the possibility of finding elbow 
room — is so far off as to have for us no more practical inter- , 
est than the recurrence of the glacial period or the final 
extinguishment of the sun. Yet remote and shadowy as it is, 
it is this possibility which gives to the Malthusian theory its 
apparently self-evident character. But if we follovv^ it, even 
this shadow will disappear. It also springs from a false 
analogy. That vegetable and animal life tend to press 
against the limits of space does not prove the same tendency 
in human life. 

Granted that man is only a more highly developed animal ; 
that the ring-tailed monkey is a distant relative who has grad- 
ually developed acrobatic tendencies, and the hump-backed 
whale a far-off connection who in early life took to the sea — 
granted that back of these he is kin to the vegetable, and is 
still subject to the same laws as plants, fishes, birds, and 
beasts. Yet there is still this difference between man and all 
other animals — he is the only animal whose desires increase 
as they are fed ; the only animal that is never satisfied. 
The wants of every other living thing are uniform and fixed. 
The ox of to-day aspires to no more than did the ox when 
man first yoked him. The sea gull of the English Channel 
who poises himself above the swift steamer, wants no better 
food or lodging than the gulls who circled round as the keels 
of Caesar's galleys first grated on a British beach. Of all 
that nature offers them, be it ever so abundant, all living 
things save man can only take, and only care for, enough to 
supply wants which are definite and fixed. The only use 
they can make of additional supplies or additional opportuni- 
ties is to multiply. 

But not so with man. No sooner are his animal wants sat- 
isfied, than new wants arise. Food he wants first, as does 
the beast ; shelter next, as does the beast ; and these given, 
his reproductive instincts assert their sway, as do those of the 
beast. But here man and beast part company. The beast 
never goes further ; the man has but set his feet on the first 
step of an infinite progression — a progression upon which the 



100 POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

beast never enters ; a progression away from and above the 
beast. 

The demand for quantity once satisfied, he seeks quality, 
Thd very desires that he has in common with the beast be- 
come extended, refined, exalted. It is not merely hunger, 
bui taste, that seeks gratification in food ; in clothes, he seeks 
not merely comfort, but adornment ; the rude shelter becomes 
a house ; the undiscriminating sexual attraction begins to 
transmute itself into subtile influences, and the hard and 
common stock of animal life to blossom and to bloom into 
shapes of delicate beauty. As power to gratify his wants 
increases, so does aspiration grow. Held down to lower lev- 
els of desire, Lucullus will sup with Lucullus ; twelve boars 
turn on spits that Antony's mouthful of meat may be done to 
a turn ; every kingdom of Nature be ransacked to add to 
Cleopatra's charms, and marble colonnades and hanging gar- 
dens and pyramids that rival the hills arise. Passing into 
higher forms of desire, that which slumbered in the plant and 
fitfully stirred in the beast, awakes in the man. The eyes of 
the mind are opened, and he longs to know. He braves the 
scorching heat of the desert and the icy blasts of the polar 
sea, but not for food ; he watches all night, but it is to trace 
the circling of the eternal stars. He adds toil to toil, to grat- 
ify a hunger no animal has felt; to assuage a thirst no beast 
can know. 

Out upon nature, in upon him himself, back through the 
mists that shroud the past, forward into the darkness that 
overhangs the future, turns the restless desire that arises 
when the animal wants slumber in satisfaction. Beneath 
things he seeks the law ; he would know how the globe was 
forged, and the stars were hung, and trace to their sources 
the springs of life. And, then, as the man develops his 
nobler nature, there arises the desire higher yet— the passion 
of passions, the hope of hopes — the desire that he, even he, 
may somehow aid in making life better and brighter, in 
destro3dng want and sin, sorrow and shame. He masters 
and curbs the animal ; he turns his back upon the feast and 
renounces the place of power ; he leaves it to others to 
accumulate wealth, to gratify pleasant tastes, to bask them- 
selves in the warm sunshine of the brief day. He works for 
those he never saw and never can see ; for a fame, or it may 
be but for a scant justice, that can only come long after the 
clods have rattled upon his coffin lid. He toils in the 
advance, where it is cold, and there is little cheer from men, 



INFERENCES FROM ANALOGY. ic^i 

and the stones are sharp and the brambles thick. Amid th^ 
scoffs of the present and the sneers that stab Uke knives, he 
builds for the future ; he cuts the trail that progressive 
humanity may hereafter broaden into a highroad. Into 
higher, grander spheres desire mounts and beckons, and a 
star that rises in the east leads him on. Lo ! the pulses of 
the man ihrob with the yearnings of the god — he would aid 
m the process of the suns ! 

Is not the gulf too wide for the analogy to span ? Give 
more food, open fuller conditions of life, and the vegetable or 
animal can but multiply. The man will develop. In 
the one the expansive force can but extend existence in new 
numbers ; in the other, it will inevitably tend to extend 
existence in higher forms and wider powers. Man is an 
animal ; but he is an animal plus something else. He is the 
mythic earth tree, whose roots are in the ground, but whose 
topmost branches may blossom in the heavens ! 

Whichever way it be turned, the reasoning by which this 
theory of the constant tendency of population to press 
against the limits of subsistence is supported shows an 
unwarranted assumption, an undistributed middle, as the 
logicians would say. Facts do not warrant it, analogy does 
not countenance it. It is a pure chimera of the imagination, 
such as those that for a long time prevented men from recog- 
nizing the rotundity and motion of the earth. It is just such 
a theory as that underneath us everything not fastened to the 
earth must fall off ; as that a ball dropped from the mast of 
a ship in motion must fall behind the mast ; as that a live 
fish placed in a vessel full of water will displace no water. 
It is as unfounded, if not as grotesque, as an assumption we 
can imagine Adam might have made had he been of an 
arithmetical turn of mind and figured on the growth of his 
first baby from the rate of its early months. From the fact 
that at birth it weighed ten pounds and in eight months 
thereafter twenty pounds, he might, with the arithmetical 
knowledge which some sages have supposed him to possess, 
have ciphered out a result quite as striking as that of Mr. 
Malthus ; namely, that by the time it got to be ten years old it 
would be as heavy as an ox, at twelve as heavy as an elephant, 
and at thirty would weigh no less than 175,716,339,548, tons. 

The fact is, there is no moiv= reason for us to trouble 
ourselves about the pressure of population upon subsistence 
than there was for Adam to worry himself about the rapid 
growth of his baby. So fir as an inference is really warranted 



102 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

by facts and suggested by analogy, it is that the law of pop. 
ulation includes such beautiful adaptations as investigation 
has already shown in other natural laws, and that we are no 
more warranted in assuming that the instinct of reproduction, 
in the natural development of society, tends to produce 
misery and vice, than we would be in assuming that the 
force of gravitation must hurl the moon to the earth and the 
earth to the sun, or that in assuming from the contraction of 
water with reductions of temperature down to 32 degrees that 
rivers and lakes must freeze to the bottom with every frost, 
and the temperate regions of earth be thus rendered uninhab- 
itable by even moderate winters. That, besides the positive 
and prudential checks of Malthus, there is a third check 
which comes into play with the elevation of the standard of 
comfort and the development of the intellect, is pointed to by 
many well known facts. The proportion of births is 
notoriously greater in new settlements, where the struggle 
with nature leaves little opportunity for intellectual life, and 
among the poverty-bound classes of older countries, who in 
in the midst of wealth are deprived of all its advantages, and 
reduced to all but an animal existence, than it is among the 
classes to whom the increase of wealth has brought independ- 
ence, leisure, comfort, and a fuller and more varied life. 
This fact, long ago recognized in the homely adage, " a rich 
man for luck, and a poor man for children," was noted by 
Adam Smith, who says it is not uncommon to find a poor, 
half-starved Highland woman has been the mother of twenty- 
three or twenty-four children, and is everywhere so clearly 
perceptible that it is only necessary to allude to it. 

If the real law of population is thus indicated, as I think 
it must be, then the tendency to increase, instead of being 
always uniform, is strong where a greater population would 
give increased comfort, and where the perpetuity of the race 
is threatened by the mortality induced by adverse conditions., 
but weakens just as the higher development of the individ- 
ual becomes possible and the perpetuity of the race is assured. 
In other words, the law of population accords with and is 
subordinate to the law of intellectual development, and any 
danger that human beings may be brought into a world where 
they cannot be provided for, arises not from the ordinances 
of nature, but from social mal-adjustments that in the midst 
of wealth condemn men to want. The truth of this will, I 
think, be conclusively demonstrated when, after having 
cleared the ground, we trace out the true laws of social growth 



DISPROOF OF THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. loj 

But it would disturb the natural order of the argument to 
anticipate them now. If I have succeeded in maintaining a 
negative — in showing that the Malthusian theory is not 
proved by the reasoning by which it is supported — it is 
enough for the present. In the next chapter I propose to 
take the affirmative and show that it is disproved by facts. 



CHAPTER IV. 

DISPROOF OF THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 

So deeply rooted and thoroughly entwined with the reason- 
ings of the current political economy is this doctrine that in- 
crease of population tends to reduce wa2:es and produce pov- 
erty, so completely does it harmonize with many popular no- 
tions, and so liable is it to recur in different shapes, that I 
have thought it necessary to meet and show in some detail 
the insufficiency of the arguments by which it is supported, 
before bringing it to the test of facts ; for the general accept- 
ance of this theory adds a most striking instance to the many 
which the history of thought affords of how easily men ignore 
facts when blindfolded by a pre-accepted theory. 

To the supreme and final test of facts we can easily bring 
this theory. Manife^^tly the question whether increase of 
population necessarily tends to reduce wages and cause want, 
is simply the question whether it tends to reduce the amount 
of wealth that can be, produced by a given amount of labor. 

This is what the «^urrent doctrine holds. The accepted 
theory is, that the i^ore that is required from nature the less 
generously does she respond, so that doubling the application 
of labor will not double the product ; and hence, increase of 
population must ^end to reduce wages and deepen poverty, or, 
in the phrase of Malthus, must result in vice and misery. 
To quote the knguage of John Stuart Mill : 

"■ A greater number of people cannot, in any given state of civilization, be col- 
lectively so well provided for as a smaller. The niggardliness of nature, not the in- 
justice of society, is the cause of the penalty attached to over-population. An 
unjust distribution of wealth does not aggravate the evil, but, at most, causes it 
to be somewhat earlier felt. It is in vain to say, that all mouths which the increase 
of mankind calls into existence bring with them hands. The new mouths require 
as much food as the old ones, and the hands do not produce as much. If all in- 
struments of production were held in joint property by the whole people, and the 
produce divided with perfect equality among them, and if in a society thus consti- 
tuted, industry were as energetic and the produce as ample as at the present time 
there would be enough to make all the existing population extremely comfortable • 
but when that population had doubled itself , as, with existing habits of the people' 
under such an encouragement, it undoubtedly would in a little more than twenty 
years, what v/ould then be their condition ? Unless the arts of production were 
in the same time improved in an almost unexampled degree, the inferior soils 
which must be resorted to. and the more laborious and scantily remunerative 



104 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

cultivation which must be employed on the superior soils, to procure food for sc 
much larger a population, would, by an insuperable necessity, render every indi- 
vidual in the community poorer than before. If the population continued to in- 
crease at the same rate, a time would soon arrive when no one would have more 
than mere necessaries, and, soon after, a time when no one would have a sufficiency 
of those, and the further increase of population would be arrested by death."* 

All this I deny. I assert that the very reverse of these prop- 
ositions is true. I assert that in any given state of civiliza- 
tion a greater number of people can collectively be better 
provided for than a smaller. I assert that the injustice of 
society, not the niggardliness of nature, is the cause of the 
want and misery which the current theory attributes to over-pop- 
ulation. I assert that the new mouths which an increasing 
population calls into existence require no more food than the 
old ones, while the hands they bring with them can in the 
natural order of things produce more. I assert that, other 
things being equal, the greater the population, the greater 
the comfort which an equitable distribution of wealth would 
give to each individual. I assert that in a state of equality 
the natural increase of population would constantly tend to 
make every individual richer instead of poorer. 

I thus distinctly join issue, and submit the question to the 
test of facts. 

But observe (for even at the risk of repetition I wish to 
warn the reader against a confusion of thought that is ob- 
servable even in writers of great reputation) that the question 
of fact into which this issue resolves itself is not in what 
stage of population is most subsistence produced 1 but in 
what stage of population is there exhibited the greatest 
power of producing wealth 1 For the power of producing 
wealth in any form is the power of producing subsistence — 
and the consumption of wealth in any form, or of wealth-pro- 
ducing power, is equivalent to the consumption of subsist- 
ence. I have, for instance, some money in my pocket. With 
it I may buy either food or cigars or jewelry or theatre tickets, 
and just as I expend my money do 1 determine labor to the 
production of food, of cigars, of jewelry, or of theatrical 
representations. A set of diamonds has a value equal to so 
many barrels of flour — that is to say, it takes on the average 
as much labor to produce the diamonds as it would to produce 
so much flour. If I load my wife with diamonds, it is as 
much an exertion of subsistence-producing power as though 
I had devoted so much food to purposes of ostentation. If 
I keep a footman, I take a possible plowman from the plow. 
The breeding and maintenance of a race-horse require care 

* Principlesof Political Economy, Book I, Chap. XIII, Sec= 2. 



DISPROOF OF THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 105 

and labor which would suffice for the breeding and mainte 
nance of many work-horses, I'he destruction of wealth in- 
volved in a general illumination or the firing of a salute is 
equivalent to the burning up of so much food ; the keeping 
of a regiment of soldiers, or of a war-ship and her crew, is 
the diversion Xo unproductive uses of labor that could pro- 
duce subsistence for many thousands of people. Thus the 
power of any population to produce the necessaries of life is 
not to be measured by the necessaries of life actuall}' pro- 
duced, but by the expenditure of power in all modes. 

There is no necessity for abstract reasoning. The question 
is one of simple fact. Does the relative power of producing 
wealth decrease with the increase of population .^ 

The facts are so patent that it is only necessary to call 
attention to them. We have, in modern times, seen many 
communities advance in population. Have they not at the 
same time advanced even more rapidly in wealth .'' We see 
many communities still increasing in population. Are ihey 
not also increasing their wealth still faster .? Is there any doubt 
that while England has been increasing her population at the 
rate of two per cent, per annum, her wealth has been growing 
in still greater proportion } Is it not true that while the 
population of the United States has been doubling every 
twent3;^-nine* years her wealth has been doubling at much 
shorter intervals ? Is it not true that under similar condi- 
tions — that is to say, among communities of similar people in 
a similar stage of civilization — the most densely populated 
community is also the richest ? Are not the more densely 
populated Eastern States richer in proportion to population 
than the more sparsely populated Western or Southern 
States ? Is not England, where population is even denser 
than in the "Eastern States of the Union, also richer in pro- 
portion ? Where will you find wealth devoted with the most 
iavishness to non-productive use — costly buildings, fine furni- 
ture, luxurious equipages, statues, pictures, pleasure gardens 
and yachts ? Is it not where population is densest, rather 
than where it is sparsest ? Where will you find in largest 
proportion those whom the general production suffices to 
keep without productive labor on their part — men of income 
and of elegant leisure, thieves, policemen, menial servants, 
lawyers, men of letters, and the like ? Is it not where pop- 
ulation is dense rather than where it is sparse ? Whence is it 
that capital overflows for remunerative investment? Is it 

* The rate up to i860 was 35 pen cent, each decade. 



io6 POPULA TION AND SUBSISTENCE. 

not from densely populated countries to sparsely populateti 
countries ? These things conclusively show that wealth is 
greatest where population is densest ; that the production of 
wealth to a given amount of labor increases as population 
increases. These things are apparent wherever we turn our 
eyes. On the same level of civilization, the same stage of the 
productive arts, government, etc., the most populous countries 
are always the most wealthy. 

Let us take a particular case, and that a case which of all 
that can be cited seems at first blush best to support the 
theory we are considering — the case of a community where, 
while population has largely increased, wages have greatly 
decreased, and it is not a matter of dubious inference but of 
obvious fact that the generosity of nature has lessened. That 
community is California. When upon the discovery of gold 
the first wave of immigration poured into California it found 
a country in which nature was in the most generous mood. 
From the river banks and bars the glittering deposits of 
thousands of years could be taken by the most primitive 
appliances, in amounts which made an ounce ($i6) per day 
only ordinary wages. The plains covered with nutritious 
grasses, were alive with countless herds of horses and cattle, 
so plenty that any traveler was at liberty to shift his saddle to 
a fresh steed, or to kill a bullock if he needed a steak, leaving 
the hide, its only valuable, part for the owner. From the rich 
soil which came first under cultivation, the mere plowing and 
sowing brought crops that in older countries, if procured at 
all, can only be procured by the most thorough manuring and 
cultivation. In early California, amidst this profusion of 
nature, wages and interest were higher thjan anywhere else in 
the world. 

This vifgin profusion of nature has been steadily giving way 
before the greater and greater demands which an increasing 
population has made upon it. Poorer and poorer diggings 
have been worked, until now no diggings worth speaking of 
can be found, and gold mining requires much capital, large 
skill, and elaborate machinery, and involves great risks. 
"Horses cost money," and cattle bre^ on the sage-brush 
plains of Nevada are brought by railroad across the mountains 
and killed in San Francisco shambles, while farmers are be- 
ginning to save their straw and look for manure, and land is 
in cultivation which will hardly yield a crop three years out of 
four without irrigation. At the same time wages and interest 
have steadily gone down. Many men are now glad to work 



DISPROOF OF THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 107 

for a week for less than they once demanded for the day, and 
money is loaned by the year for a rate which once would hardly 
have been thought extortionate by the month. Is the con- 
nection between the reduced productiveness of nature and 
the reduced rate of wages that of cause and effect? Is it true 
that wages are lower because labor yields less wealth? 

On the contrary ! Instead of the wealth producing power of 
labor being less in California in 1879 ^'''^^^ '^^"' 1S49, I ^'^ conr 
vinced that it is greater. And, it seems to me, that no one 
wh ■ considers how enormously during these years the efficiency 
of labor in California has been increased by roads, wharves, 
flumes, railroads, steamboats, telegraphs and machinery 
of all kinds; by a closer connection with the rest of the 
world ; and by the numberless economies resulting from a 
larger population, can doubt that the return which labor re- 
ceives from nature in Cahfornia is on the whole much greater 
now than it was in the days of unexhausted placers and vir- 
gin soil — the increase in the power of the human factor hav- 
ing more than compensated for the decline in the power of 
the natural factor. That this conclusion is the correct one is 
proved by many facts whicK show that the consumption of 
wealth is now much greater, as compared with the number of 
laborers, than it was then. Instead of a population composed 
almost exclusively of men in the prime of life, a large proportion 
of women and children are now supported, and other non-pro- 
ducers have increased in much greater ratio than the popula- 
tion; luxury has grown far more than wages have fallen; 
where the best houses were cloth and paper shanties, are now 
mansions whose magnificence rivals European palaces; there 
are liveried carriages on the streets of San Francisco and 
pleasure yachts on her bay ; the class who can live sumpt- 
uously on their incomes has steadily grown; there are rich 
men beside whom the richest of the earlier years would seem 
little better than paupers — in short, there are on every hand 
the most striking and conclusive evidences that the produc- 
tion and consumption of wealth have increased with even 
greater rapidity than the increase of jjopulation, and that if 
any class obtains less it is solely because of the greater ine- 
quality of distribution. 

What is obvious in this particular instance is obvious 
where the survey is extended. The richest countries are not 
those where nature is most prolific; but those where labor 
is most efficient — not Mexico, but Massachusetts; not Brazil, 
but England — the countries where population is the densest 



168 POPULATION- AND SUBSISTENCE. 

and presses hardest upon the capabilities of nature, are, 
other things being equal, the countries where the largest pro- 
portion of the produce can be devoted to luxury and the support 
of non-producers, the countries where capital overflows, the 
countries that upon exigency, such as war, can stand the 
greatest drain. That the production of v/ealth must, in pro 
portion \o the labor employed, be greater in a densely popu- 
tcued country like England than in new countries where 
wages and interest are higher, is evident from the fact that, 
though a much smaller proportion of the population is 
engaged in productive labor, a much larger surplus is avail- 
able for other purposes than that of supplying physical needs. 
In a new country the whole available force of the community 
is devoted to production — there is no well man who does not 
do productive work of some kind, no well woman 
exernpt from household tasks. There are no paupers or beg- 
gars, no idle rich, no class whose labor is devoted to minister- 
ing to the convenience or caprice of the rich, no purely liter- 
ary or scientific class, no criminal class who live by preying 
upon society, no large class maintained to guard society 
against them. Yet with the whole .force of the community 
thus devoted to production, no such consumption of wealth in 
proportion to the whole population takes place, or can be 
afforded, as goes on in the old country ; for though the con- 
dition of the lowest class is better, and there is no one who 
cannot get a living, there is no one who gets much more — 
few or none who can live in anything like what would be 
called luxury, or even comfort, in the older country. That is 
to say, that in the older country the consumption of wealth 
in proportion to population is greater, although the proportion 
of labor devoted to the production of wealth is less — or that 
fewer laborers produce more wealth ; for wealth must be pro- 
duced before it can be consumed. 

It may, however, be said, that the superior wealth of 
older countries is due not to superior productive power, but 
to the accumulations of wealth which the new country has 
not yet had time to msike. 

It will be well for a moment to consider this idea of 
accumulated wealth. The truth is, that wealth can be 
accumulated but to a slight degree, and that communities 
really live, as the vast majority of individuals live, from 
hand \o mouth. Wealth will not bear much accumulation ; 
except in a few unimportant forms it will not keep. The 
matter of the universe, which, when worked up by labor 



DISPROOF OF THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 109 

into desirable forms, constitutes wealth, is constantly tend- 
ing back to its original state. Some forms of wealth will last 
for a few hours, some for a few days, some for a few months, 
some for a few years ; and there are very few forms of wealth 
that can be passed from one generation to another. Take 
wealth in some of its most useful and permanent forms — ships, 
hoiKes, railways, machinery. Unless laboris constantly exert- 
ed in preserving and renewing them, they will almost immedi- 
ately become useless. Stop labor in any community, and wealth 
would vanish almost as the jet of a fountain vanishes when the 
flow of water is shut off. Let labor again exert itself, and wealth 
will almost as immediately re-appear. This has been long 
noticed where war or other calamity has swept away wealth, 
leaving population unimpaired. There is not less wealth in 
London to-day because of the great fire of 1666 ; nor yet is 
there less wealth in Chicago because of the great fire of 
1870. On those fire-swept acres have arisen, under the hand 
of labor, more magnificent buildings, filled with greater stocks 
of goods ; and the stranger who, ignorant of the history of the 
city, passes along those stately avenues would not dream that 
a few years ago all lay so black and bare. The same princi- 
ple — that wealth is constantly re-created — is obvious in every 
new city. Given the same population and the same efficiency 
of labor, and the town of yesterday will possess and enjoy 
as much as the town founded by the Romans. No one who 
has seen Melbourne or San Francisco can doubt that if the 
population of England were transported to New Zealand, 
leaving all accumulated wealth behind. New Zealand would 
soon be as rich as England is now ; or, conversely, that if the 
population of England were reduced to the sparseness of the 
present population of New Zealand, in spite of accumulated 
wealth, they would soon be as poor. Accumulated wealth 
seems to play just about such a part in relation to the social 
organism as accumulated nutriment does to the physical 
organism. Some accumulated wealth is necessary, and to a 
C;irtain extent it may be drawn upon in exigencies ; but the 
wealth produced by past generations can no more account 
for the consumption of the present than the dinners he ate 
last year can supply a man with present strength. 

But without these considerations, which I allude to more for 
their general than for their special bearing, it is evident that 
superior accumulations of wealth can only account for greater 
consumption of wealth in cases where accumulated wealth is 
decreasing, and that wherever the volume of accumulated 



.10 POPULA TION AND SUBSIST^NCB, 

'.vealth is maintained, and even more obviously where it is 
increasing, a greater consumption of wealth must imply a 
greater production of wealth. Now, whether we compare 
different communities with each other, or the same community 
at different times, it is obvious that the progressive state, 
which is marked by increase of population, is also marked by 
an increased accumulation of wealth, not merely in the aggre- 
gate, but per capita. And hence, increase of population, so 
far as it has yet anywhere gone, does not mean a reduction, 
but an increase, in the average production of wealth. 

And the reason of this is obvious. For, even if the 
increase of population does reduce the power of the natural 
factor of wealth, by compelling a resort to poorer soils, etc., 
it yet so vastly increases the power of the human factor as to 
more than compensate. Twenty men working together will, 
where nature is niggardly, produce more than twenty times 
the wealth that one man can produce where nature is most 
bountiful. The denser the population the more minute 
becomes the subdivision of labor, the greater the economies 
of production and distribution, and, hence, the very reverse 
of the Malthusian doctrine is true ; and, within the limits in 
which we have any reason to suppose increase would still go 
on, in any given state of civilization a greater number of 
people can produce a larger proportionate amount of wealth 
" and more fully supply their wants, than can a smaller num- 
ber. 

Look simply at the facts. Can anything be clearer than 
that the cause of the poverty which festers in the centres 
of civilization is not in the weakness of the productive 
forces ? In countries where poverty is deepest, the forces 
of production are evidently strong enough, if fully employed, 
to provide for the lowest not merely comfort but luxury. 
The industrial paralysis, the commercial depression which 
curses the civilized world to-day, evidently springs from no 
lack of productive power. Whatever be the trouble, it is 
clearly not in the want of ability to produce wealth. 

It is this very fact — that want appears where productive 
power is greatest and the production of wealth is largest — 
that constitutes the enigma which perplexes the civilized 
world, and which we are trying to unravel. Evidently the 
Malthusian theory, which attributes want to the decrease of 
productive power, will not explain it. That theory is utterly 
inconsistent with all the facts. It is really a gratuitous attri- 
bution to the laws of God of results which, even from this 



DISPROOF OF THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. iii 

examination, we may infer really spring from the mal-adiust- 
ment of men — an inference which, as we proceed, will 
become a demonstration. For we have yet to find what 
does produce poverty amid advancing wealth. 



BOOK III. 

THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 



The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are 
alvfaysj tne most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that with 
fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion than had originally been employed, 
the same effects may be more easily produced. The first philosophical systems, 
in the same manner, are always the most complex, and a particular connecting 
chain, or principle, is generally thought necessary to unite every two seemingly 
disjointed appearances ; but it often happens that one great connecting principle 
is afterward found to be sufficient to bind together all the discordant phenomena 
that occur in a whole species of things. — Adam Smithy Essay on the Principles 
%vhich Lead and Direct Philosophical Inquiries^ as Illustrated by the History o/ 
A stronomy. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE INQUIRY NARROWED TO THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION — • 
THE NECESSARY RELATION OF THESE LAWS. 

The preceding examination has, I think, conclusively 
shown that the explanation currently given, in the name of 
political economy, of the problem we are attempting to solve, 
is no explanation at all. 

That with material progress wages fail to increase, but 
rather tend to decrease, cannot be explained by the theory 
that the increase of laborers constantly tends to divide into 
smaller portions the capital sum from which wages are paid. 
For, as we have seen, wages do not come from capital, but 
are the direct produce of labor. Each productive laborer, 
as he works, creates his wages, and with every additional 
laborer there is an addition to the true wages fund — an 
addition to the common stock of wealth, which, generally 
speaking, is considerably greater than the amount he draws 
in wages. 

Nor, yet, can it be explained by the theory that nature 
yields less to the increasing drafts which an increasing popu- 
lation makes upon her ; for the increased efficiency of labor 
makes the progressive state a state of continually increasing 
production per capita, and the countries of densest popula- 
tion, other things being equal, are always the countries of 
greatest wealth. 



THE TR NE CESS A R Y RE LA TION. 1 1 3 

So far, we have only increased the perplexities of the 
problem. We have overthrown a theory which did, in some 
sort of fashion, explain existing facts ; but in doing so have 
only made existing facts seem more inexplicable. It is as 
though, while the Ptolemaic theory was yet in its strength, it 
had been proved simply that the sun and stars do not revolve 
about the earth. The phenomena of day and night, and of 
the apparent motion of the celestial bodies, would yet 
remain unexplained, to inevitably reinstate the old theory 
unless a better one took its place. Our reasoning has led us 
to the conclusion that each productive laborer produces his 
own wages, and that increase in the number of laborers 
should increase the wages of each ; whereas, the apparent 
facts are that there are many laborers who cannot obtain 
remunerative employment, and that increase in the number 
of laborers brings diminution of wages. We have, in short, 
proved that wages ought to be highest where in reality they 
are lowest. 

Nevertheless, even in doing this we have made some 
progress. Next to finding what we look for, is to discover 
where it is useless to look. We have at least narrowed the 
field of inquiry. For this, at least, is now clear — that the 
cause which, in spite of the enormous increase of productive 
power, confines the great body of producers to the least 
share of the product upon which they will consent to live, is 
not the limitation of capital,' nor yet the limitation of the 
powers of nature which respond to labor. As it is not, 
therefore, to be found in the laws which bound the produc- 
tion of wealth, it must be sought in the laws which govern 
distribution. To them let us turn. 

It will be necessary to review in its main branches the 
whole subject of the distribution of wealth. To discover 
the cause which, as population increases and the productive 
arts advance, deepens the poverty of the lowest class, we 
must find the law which determines what part of the produce 
is distributed to labor as wages. To find the law of wages, 
or at least to make sure when we have found it, we must also 
determine the laws which fix the part of the produce which 
goes to capital and the part which goes to land owners, for 
as land, labor, and capital join in producing wealth, it is 
between these three that the produce must be divided. 

What is meant by the produce or production of a commu 
nity is the sum of the wealth produced by that community — ■ 
8 



1 14 THE LA WS OF DISTRIB UTION. 

the general fund from which (as long as previously existing 
stock is not lessened) all consumption must be met and all 
revenues drawn. As I have already explained, production 
does not merely mean the making of things, but includes the 
increase of value gained by transporting or exchanging 
things. There is a produce of wealth in a purely commercial 
community, as there is in a purely agricultural or manufac- 
turing community; and in the one case, as in the others, 
some part of this produce will go to capital, some part to 
labor, and some part, if land have any value, to the owners 
of land. As a mattei of fact, a portion of the wealth 
produced is constantly going to the replacement of capital, 
which is constantly consumed and constantly replaced. But 
it is not necessary to take this into account, as it is elimin- 
ated by considering capital as continuous, which, in speaking 
or thinking of it, we habitually do. When we speak of the 
produce, we mean, therefore, that part of the wealth pro- 
duced above what is necessary to replace the capital 
consumed in production ; and when we speak of interest, or 
the return to capital, we mean what goes to capital after its 
replacement or maintenance. 

It is, further, a matter of fact, that in every community 
which has passed the most primitive stage some portion of the 
produce is taken in taxation and consumed by government. 
But it is not necessary, in seeking the laws of distribution, to 
take this into consideration. We may consider taxation 
either as not existing, or as by so much reducing the 
produce. And, so, too, of what is taken from the produce 
by certain forms of monopoly, which will be alluded to in a 
subsequent chapter (Chap. IV), and which exercise powers 
analogous to taxation. After we have discovered the laws of 
distribution we can then see what bearing, if any, taxation 
has upon them. 

We must discover these laws of distribution for ourselves — 
or, at least, two out of the three. For, that they are not (at 
least as a whole) correctly apprehended by the current political 
economy, may be seen, irrespective of our preceding examin- 
ation of one of them, in any of the standard treatises. 

This, is evident, in the first place, from the terminology 
employed. 

In all politico-economic works we are told that the three 
factors in production are land, labor, and capital, and that 
the whole produce is primarily distributed into three corre- 
sponding parts. Three terms, therefore, are needed, each of 



THEIR NEC ESS A R V RE LA TION. \ \ 5 

which shall clearly express one of these parts to the exclusion 
of the others. Rent, as defined, clearly enough expresses 
the first of these parts — that which goes to the owners of 
land. Wages, as defined, clearly enough expresses the 
second — that part which constitutes the return to labor. 
But as to the third term — that which should express the 
return to capital — there is in the standard works a most 
puzzling ambiguity and confusion. 

Of words in common use, that which comes nearest to 
exclusively expressing the idea of return for the use of 
capital, is interest, which, as commonly used, implies the 
return for the use of capital, exclusive of any labor in its 
use or management, and exclusive of any risk, except such 
as may be involved in the security. The word profits, as 
commonly used, is almost synonymous with revenue ; it 
means a gain, an amount received in excess of an amount 
expended, and frequently includes receipts that are properly 
rent ; while it nearly always includes receipts which are 
properly wages, as well as compensations for the risk 
peculiar to the various uses of capital. Unless extreme 
violence is done to the meaning of the word, it cannot, 
therefore, be used in political economy to signify that share 
of the produce which goes to capital, in contradistinction to 
those parts which go to labor and to land owners. 

Now, all this is recognized in the standard works on politi- 
cal economy. Adam Smith well illustrates how wages and 
compensation for risk largely enter into profits, pointing out 
how the large profits of apothecaries and small retail dealers 
are in reality wages for their labor, and not interest on their 
capital ; and how the great profits sometimes made in risky 
businesses, such as smuggling and the lumber trade, are 
really but compensations for risk, which, in the long run, 
reduce the returns to capital so used to the ordinary, 01 
below the ordinary, rate. Similar illustrations are given in 
most of the subsequent works, where profit is formally 
defined in its common sense, with, perhaps, the exclusion of 
rent. In all these works, the reader is told that profits are 
made up of three elements — wages of superintendence, 
compensation for risk, and interest^ or the return for the use 
of capital. 

Thus, neither in its common meaning, nor in the meaning 
expressly assigned to it in the current political economy, can 
profits have any place in the discussion of the distribution of 
wealth between the three factors of production. Either in its 



Ii6 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

common meaning or in the meaning expressly assigned to it, 
to talk about the distribution of wealth into rent, wages, and 
profits, is like talking of the division of mankind into men 
women, and human beings. Yet, this, to the utter bewil- 
derment of the reader, is what is done in all the standard 
works. After formally decomposing profits into wages of 
superintendence, compensation for risk, and interest — the net 
return for the use of capital — they proceed to treat of the 
distribution of wealth between the rent of land, the wages of 
labor, and the profits of capital. 

I doubt not that there are thousands of men who have 
vainly puzzled their brains over this confusion of terms, and 
abandoned the effort in despair, thinking that as the fault 
could not be in such great thinkers, it must be in their own 
stupidity. If it is any consolation to such men, they may 
turn to Buckle's " History of Civilization," and see how a 
man who certainly got a man^elously clear idea of what he 
read, and who had read carefully the principal economists 
from Smith down, was inextricably confused by this jumble 
of profits and interest. For Buckle (Vol. i, Chap. II, and 
notes), persistently speaks of the distribution of wealth into 
rent, wages, interest (3^/2^ profits. 

And this is not to be wondered at. For, after formally de- 
composing profits into wages of superintendence, insurance, 
and interest, these economists, in assigning causes which fix 
the general rate of profit, speak of things which evidently aft'ect 
only that part of profits which they have denominated interest ; 
and then, in speaking of the rate of interest, either give the 
meaningless formula of supply and demand, or speak of causes 
which affect the compensation for risk ; evidently using the 
word in its common sense, and not in the economic sense 
they have assigned to it, from which compensation for risk is 
eliminated. If the reader will take up John Stuart Mill's 
" Principles of Political Economy," and compare the chapter 
on profits (Book II, Chap. 15) with the chapter on Interest 
(Book III, Chap. 23), he will see the confusion thus arising 
exemplified, in the case of the most logical of English 
economists, in a more striking manner than I would like to 
characterize. 

Now, such men have not been led into such confusion of 
thought without a cause. If they, one after another, have 
followed Dr. Adam Smith, as boys play "follow my leader," 
jumping where he jumped, and falling where he fell, it has 



THEIR NE CESSAR Y RELA TION. 1 1 j 

been that there was a fence where he jumped and a hole where 
he fell. 

The difficulty from which this confusion has sprung is in the 
pre-accepted theory of wages. For reasons which I have 
before assigned, it has seemed to them a self-evident truth 
that the wages of certain classes of laborers depended upon 
the ratio between capital and the number of laborers. But 
there are certain kinds of reward for exertion to which this 
theory evidently will not apply, so the term wages has in use 
been contracted to include only wages in the narrow, com- 
mon sense. This being the case, if the term interest were 
used (as consistently with their definitions it should have been 
used) to represent the third part of the division of the produce, 
all rewards of personal exertion save those of what are 
commonly called wage-workers, would clearly have been kit 
out. But by treating the division of wealth as between rent, 
wages, and profits, instead of between rent, wages, and inter- 
est, this difficulty is glossed over, all wages which M'ill not 
fall under the pre-accepted law of wages being vaguely 
grouped under profits, as wages of superintendence. 

To read carefully what economists say about the distri- 
bution of wealth is to see that, though they correctly define 
it, wages, as they use it in this connection, is what logicians 
would call an undistributed term— it does not mean all 
wages, but only some wages — viz., the wages of manual labor 
paid by an employer. So other wages are thrown over with 
the return to capital, and included under the term profits, 
and any clear distinction between the returns to capital and 
the returns to human exertion thus avoided. The fact is that 
the current political economy fails to give any clear and 
consistent account of the distribution of wealth. The law of 
rent is clearly stated, but it stands unrelated. The rest is a. 
confused and incoherent jumble. 

The very arrangement of these works shows this confusion 
and inconclusiveness of thought. In no politico-economic 
treatise that I know of are these laws of distribution brought 
together, so that the reader can take them in at a glasce and 
recognize their relation to each other ; but what is said about 
each one is enveloped in a mass of political and moral 
reflections and dissertations. And the reason is not far to 
seek. To bring together the three laws of distribution as 
they are now taught, is to show at a glance that they lack 
necessary relation. 

The laws of the distribution of wealth are obviously laws 



ii8 THE LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

of proportion, and must be so related to each other that an} 
two being given the third may be inferred. For to say that 
one of the three parts of a whole is increased or decreased, 
is to say that one or both of the other parts is, reversely, 
decreased or increased. If Tom, Dick, and Harry are 
partners in business, the agreement which fixes the share of 
one in the profits must at the same time fix either the separate 
or the joint shares of the other two. To fix Tom's share at 
40 per cent, is to leave but 60 per cent to be divided between 
Dick and Harry. To fix Dick's share at 40 per cent and 
Harry's share at 35 per cent is to fix Tom's share at 25 per 
cent. 

But between the laws of the distribution of wealth, as laid 
down in the standard works, there is no such relation. If 
we fish them out and bring them together, we find them to be 
as follows : 

Wages are determined by the ratio between the amount of 
capital devoted to the payment and subsistence of labor and 
the number of laborers seeking employment. 

Rent is detennmed by the margin of cultivation ; all lands 
yielding as rent that part of their produce wiiich exceeds 
what an equal application of labor and capital could procure 
from the poorest land in use. 

Interest is determined by the equation between the demands 
of borrowers and the supply of capital offered by lenders. 
Or (if we take what is given as the law of profits) it is deter- 
mined by wages, falling as wages rise and rising as wages 
fall — or, to use the phrase of Mill, by the cost of labor to the 
capitalist. 

The bringing together of these current statements of the 
laws of the distribution of wealth shows at a glance that they 
lack the relation to each other which the true laws of distri- 
bution must have. They do not correlate and co-ordinate. 
Hence, at least two of these three laws are either wrongly 
apprehended or wrongly stated. This tallies with what we 
have already seen, that the current apprehension of the law 
of wages, and, inferentially, of the law of interest, will not 
bear examination. Let us, then, seek the true laws of the 
distribution of the produce of labor into wages, rent, and 
interest. The proof that we have found them will be in their 
correlation — that they meet, and relate, and mutually bound 
each other. 

With profits this inquiry has manifestly nothing to do. We 
want to find what it is that determines the division of their 



THEIR NECESSARY RELATION. 119 

joint produce between land, labor, and capital, and profits is 
not a term that refers exclusively to any one of these three 
divisions. Of the three parts into which profits are divided 
by political economists — namely, compensation for risk, 
wages of superintendence, and return for the use of capital 
—the latter falls under the term interest, which includes all 
the returns for the use of capital, and excludes everything 
else; wages of superintendence falls under the term wages, 
which includes all returns for human exertion, and excludes 
every thing else ; and compensation for risk has no place 
whatever, as risk is eliminated when all the transactions of a 
community are taken together. I shall, therefore, consistently 
with the definitions of political economists, use the term 
interest as signifying that part of the produce which goes to 
capital. 

To recapitulate ; 

Land, labor, and capital are the factors of production. 
The term land includes all natural opportunities or forces ; 
the term labor, all human exertion ; and the term capital, all 
wealth used to produce more wealth. In returns to these 
three factors is the whole produce distributed. That part 
which goes to land owners as payment for the use of natural 
opportunities is called rent ; that paic which constitutes the 
reward of human exertion is called wages ; and that part 
which constitutes the return for the use of capital is called 
interest. These terms mutually exclude each other. The 
income of any individual may be made up from any one, two, 
or all three of these sources ; but in the effort to discover 
the laws of distribution we must keep them separate. 

Let me premise the inquiry which we are about to under- 
take by saying that the miscarriage of political economy, 
which I think has now been abundantly shown, can, it seems 
to me, be traced to the adoption of an erroneous standpoint. 
Living and making their observations in a state of society in 
which a capitalist generally rents land and hires labor, and 
thus seems to be the undertaker or first mover in production, 
the great cultivators of the science have been led to look upon 
capital as the prime factor in production, land as its instru- 
ment, and labor as its agent or tool. This is apparent on 
every page — in the form and course of their reasoning, in the 
character of their illustrations, and even in their choice of 
terms. Everywhere capital is the starting point, the capitalist 
the central figure. So far does this go that both Smith and 



120 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

Ricardo use the term " natural wages " to express the mini' 
mum upon which laborers can live ; whereas, unless injustice 
is natural, all that the laborer produces should rather be held 
as his natural wages. This habit of looking upon capital as 
the employer of labor has led both to the theory that wages 
depend upon the relative abundance of capital, and to the 
theory that interest varies inversely with wages, while it has 
led away from truths that but for this habit would have beer. 
:ipparent. Jn short, the misstep which, so far asthegreat laws 
ot distribution are concerned, has led political economy mto 
the jungles, instead of upon the mountain tops, was taken 
when Adam Smith, in his first book, left the stand-point indi- 
cated m the sentence, "The produce of labor constitutes the 
natural recompense or wages of labor," to take that in which 
capital is considered as employing labor and paying wages. 

But when we consider the origin and natural sequence of 
things, this order is reversed ; and capital instead of first is 
last; instead of being the employer of labor, it is in reality 
employed by labor. There must be land before labor can be 
exerted, and labor must be exerted before capital can be pro- 
duced. Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to 
assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial 
force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital. Labor 
can only be exerted upon land, and it is from land that the 
matter which it transmutes into wealth must be drawn. Land 
therefore is the condition precedent, the field and material of 
labor. The natural order is land, labor, capital, and, instead 
of starting from capital as our initial point, we should start 
from land. 

There is another thing to be observed. Capital is not a 
necessary factor in production. Labor exerted upon land 
can product wealth without the aid of capital, and in the 
necessary genesis of things must so produce wealth before 
capital can exist. Therefore the law of rent and the law of 
wages must correlate each other and form a perfect whole 
without reference to the law of capital, as otherwise these 
laws would not fit the cases which can readily be imagined, 
and which to some degree actually exist, in which capital 
takes no part in production. And "as capital is, as is often 
said, but stored-up labor, it is but a form of labor, a subdivis- 
ion of the general term labor , and its law must be subor- 
dinate to, and independently correlate with, the law of wages, 
so as to fit cases in which the whole produce is divided 
between labor and capital, v\lthout any deduction for rent 



RENT AND THE LA W OF RENT, .21 

To resort to the illustration before used : The division of the 
produce between land, labor and capital must be as it would 
be between Tom, Dick and Harry, if Tom and Dick were the 
original partners, and Harry came in but as an assistant t(^ 
and sharer with Dick. 



CHAPTER II. 

RENT AND THE LAW OF RENT. 

The term rent, in its economic sense — that is, when used, 
as I am using it, to distinguish that part of the produce 
which accrues to the owners of land or other natural capabil- 
ities by virtue of their ownership — differs in meaning from 
the word rent as commonly used. In some respects this 
economic meaning is narrower than the common meaning; in 
other respects it is wider. 

It is narrower in this : In common speech, we apply the 
word rent to payments for the use of buildings, machinery, 
fixtures, etc., as well as to payments for the use of land or 
other natural capabilities ; and in speaking of the rent of a 
house or the rent or a farm, we do not separate the price for 
the use of the improvements from the price for the use 
of the bare land. But in the economic meaning of rent 
payments for the use of any of the products of human 
exertion are excluded, and of the lumped payments for the 
use of houses, farms, etc., only that part is rent which con- 
stitutes the consideration for the use of the land — that part 
paid for the use of buildings or other improvements being 
properly interest, as it is a consideration for the use of 
capital. 

It is wider in this : In common speech we only speak of 
rent when owner and user are distinct persons. But in the 
economic sense there is also rent where the same person 
is both owner and user. Where owner and user are thus 
the same person, whatever part of his income he might 
obtain by letting the land to another is rent, while the return 
for his labor and capital are that part of his income wliich 
they would yield him did he hire instead owning the land. 
Rent is also expressed in a selling price. When land is 
purchased, the payment which is made for the ownership, or 
right to perpetual use, is rent commuted or capitalized. If I 
buy land for a small price and hold it until I can sell it for a 
large price, I have become rich, not by wages for my labor or 



122 THE LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

by interest upon my capital, but by the increase of rent 
Rent, in short, is the share in the wealth produced which 
the exclusive right to the use of natural capabilities gives to 
the owner. Wherever land has an exchange value there is 
rent in the economic meaning of the terra. Wherever land 
having a value is used, either by owner or hirer, there is rent 
actual , wherever it is not used, but still has a value, there is 
rent potential. It is this capacity of yielding rent which gives 
/alue to land. Until its ownership will confer some advan- 
tage, land has no value.* 

Thus rent or land value does not arise from the produc- 
tiveness or utility of land. It in no wise represents any help 
or advantage given to production, but simply the power of 
securing a part of the results of production. No matter 
what are its capabilities, land can yield no rent and have no 
value until some one is willing to give labor or the results of 
labor for the privilege of using it ; and what anyone will thus 
give, depends not upon the capacity of the land, but upon its 
capacity as compared with that of land that can be had for 
nothing. I may have very rich land, but it will yield no rent 
and have no value so long as there is other land as good to 
be had without cost. But when this other land is appropri- 
ated, and the best land to be had for nothing is inferior, 
either in fertility, situation, or other quality, my land will 
begin to have a value and 5deld rent. And though the 
productiveness of my land may decrease, yet if the produc- 
tiveness of the land to be had without charge decreases in 
greater proportion, the rent I can get, and consequently the 
value of my land, will steadily increase. Rent, in short, is 
the price of monopoly, arising from the reduction to individual 
ownership of natural elements which human exertion can 
neither produce nor increase. 

If one man owned all the land accessible to any community, 
he could, of course, demand any price or condition for its 
use that he saw fit ; and, as long as "his ownership was 
acknowledged, the other members of the community would 
have but death or emigration as the alternative to submission 
to his terms. This has been the case in many communities ; 
but in the modern form of society, the land, though generally 
reduced to individual ownership, is in the hands of too many 
different persons to permit the price which can be obtained 

* in speaking- of the value of land I use and shall use the words as referring- to 
the value of the bare land. When I wish to speak of the value of land and 
improvements I shall use those words. 



RENT AND THE LA W OF RENT, 123 

for its use to be fixed by mere caprice or desire. While each 
individual owner tries to get all he can, there is a limit to 
what he can get, which constitutes the market price or market 
rent of the land, and which varies with different lands and at 
different times. The law, or relation, which, under these 
circumstances of free competition among all parties (the 
condition which in tracing out the principles of political 
economy is always to be assumed), determines what rent or 
, price can be got by the owner, is styled the law of rent. 
This fixed with certainty, we have more than a starting point 
rrom which the laws which regulate wages and interest may 
be traced. For, as the distribution of wealth is a division, in 
ascertaining what fixes the share of the produce which 
goes as rent, we also ascertain what fixes the share which is 
left for wages, where there is no co-operation of capital ; and 
what fixes the joint share left for wages and interest, wheie 
capital does co-operate in production. 

Fortunately, as to the law of rent there is no necessity for 
discussion. Authority here coincides with common sense,* 
and the accepted dictum of the current political economy 
has the self-evident character of a geometric axiom. This 
accepted law of rent, which John Stuart Mill denominates 
the pons asinorum of political economy, is sometimes styled 
'' Ricardo's law of rent," from the fact that, although not the 
first to announce it, he brought it prominently into notice. t 
It is : 

The rent of land is determined by the excess of its produce over 
that which the same application can secure from the least pro- 
ductive land in use. 

This law, which of course applies to land used for other 
purposes than agriculture, and to all natural agencies, such 
as mines, fisheries, etc., has been exhaustively explained and 
illustrated by all the leading economists since Ricardo ; but 
its mere statement has all the force of a self-evident proposi- 
tion, for it is clear that the effect of competition is to make 

* I do not mean to say that the accepted law of rent has never been disputed. 
In all the nonsense that in the present disjointed condition of the science has been 
printed as political economy, it would be hard to find anything- that has not been 
disputed. But I mean to say that it has the sanction of all economic writers who 
ar2 really to be regarded as authority. As John Stuart Mill says (Book II, Chap. 
XVI), •'■ there are few persons who have refused their assent to it, except from not 
having thoroughly understood it. The loose and inaccurate way in which it is 
often apprehended by those who affect to refute it is very remarkable." An obser- 
vation which has received many later exemplifications. 

t According to McCulloch the law of rent was first stated in a pamphlet by Dr. 
James Anderson of Edinburgh in 1777, and simultaneously in the beginning of this 
century by Sir Edward West, Mr. Malthus, and Mr. Ricardo. 



124 THE LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

the lowest reward for which labor and capital will engage in 
production, the highest they can claim ; and hence to enable 
the owner of more productive land to appropriate in rent all 
the return above that required to recompense labor and cap- 
ital at the ordinary rate — that is to say, what they can obtain 
upon the least productive land in use (or at the least produc- 
tive r 3int), where, of course, no rent is paid. 

P^ifihaps it may conduce to a fuller understanding of the 
law of rent to put it in this form : The ownership of a natural 
agent of production will give the power of appropriating so 
much of the wealth produced by the exertion of labor and 
capital upon it as exceeds the return which the same applica- 
tion of labor and capital could secure in the least productive 
occupation in which they freely engage. 

This, however, amounts to precisely the same thing, for 
there is no occupation in which labor and capital can engage 
which does not require the use of land ; and, furthermore, 
the cultivation or other use of land will always be carried to 
as low a point of remuneration, all things considered, as is 
freely accepted in any other pursuit. Suppose, for instance, 
a community in which part of the labor and capital is devoted 
to agriculture and part to manufactures. The poorest land 
cultivated yields an average return which we will call 20, 
and 20 therefore will be the average return to labor and cap- 
ital, as vv^ell in manufactures as in agriculture. Suppose that 
from some permanent cause the return in manufactures is 
now reduced to 15. Clearly, the labor and capital engaged 
in manufactures will turn to agriculture ; and the process will 
not stop until; either by the extension of cultivation to 
inferior lands o"^ to inferior points on the same land, or by an 
increase in the relative value of manufactured products, owmg 
to the diminution of production — or, as a matter of fact, by 
both processes — the yield to labor and capital in both pur- 
suits has, all things considered, been brought again to the 
same level, so that whatever be the final point of productive- 
ness at which manufactures are still carried on, whether it be 
18 or 17 or 16, cultivation \^dll also be extended to that point. 
And thus, to say that rent wall be the excess in productive- 
ness over the yield at the m.argin, or lowest point, of cultiva- 
tion, is the same thing as to say that it will be the excess of 
produce over what the same amount of labor and capital 
obtainn in the least remunerative occupation. 

The ^.aw of rent, is in fact, but a deduction from the law of 
competition, and amounts simply to the assertion that as 



RENT AND THE LA W OF RENT. 125 

wages and interest tend to a common level, all that part of 
the general production of wealth which exceeds what the 
labor and capital employed could have secured for themselves, 
if applied to the poorest natural agent in use, will go to land 
owners in the shape of rent. It rests, in the last anai3^sis, 
upon the fundamental principle, which is to political economy 
what the attraction of gravitation is to physics — that men will 
seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion. 

This, then, is the law of rent. Although many standard 
treatises follow too much the example of Ricardo, who seems 
to view it merely in its relation to agriculture, and in several 
places speaks of manufactures yielding no rent (when, in 
truth, manufactures and exchange yield the highest rents, as 
is evinced by the greater value of land in manufacturing and 
commercial cities), thus hiding the full importance of the law, 
yet, ever since the time of Ricardo, the law itself has been 
clearly apprehended and fully recognized. But not so its 
corollaries. Plain as they are, the accepted doctrine of wages 
(backed and fortified not only as has been hitherto explained, 
but by considerations whose enormous weight wilt be seen 
when the logical conclusion toward which we are tending is 
reached) has hitherto prevented their recognition.* Yet, is it 
not as plain as the simplest geometrical demonstration, that 
the corollary of the law of rent is the law of wages, where the 
division of the produce is simply between rent and wages ; or 
the law of wages and interest taken together, where the divis- 
ion is into rent, wages, and interest ? Stated reversely, th^ 
law of rent is necessarily the law of wages and interest taken 
together, for it is the assertion, that no matter what be the 
production which results from the application of labor and 
capital, these two factors will only receive in wages and 
interest such part of the produce as they could have produced 
on land free to them without the payment of rent — that is the 
least productive land or point in use. For, if, of the produce, 
all over the amount which labor and capital could secure from 
land for which no rent is paid must go to land owners as 
rent, then all that can be claimed by labor and capital as 
wages and interest is the amount which they could have 
secured from land yielding no rent. 

Or to put it in algebraic form : 

As Produce==Rent-|-Wages-f-Interest, 

Therefore, Produce — Rent=Wages-|-Interest. 

*Buckle (Chap. II, History of Civilization) recognizes the necessary ratlattoc 
between reat, interest, and wages, but evidently never worked it out. 



126 THE LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

Thus wages and interest do not depend upon the produce 
of labor and capital, but upon what is left after rent is taken 
out ; or, upon the produce which they could obtain without pay- 
ing rent — that is, from the poorest land in use. And hence, no 
matter v^^hat be the increase in productive power, if the 
increase in rent keeps pace with it, neither wages nor interest 
can increase. 

The moment this simple relation is recognized, a flood of 
light streams in upon what was before inexphcable, and 
seemingly discordant facts range themselves under an 
obvious law. The increase of rent which goes on in progres- 
sive countries is at once seen to be the key which explains 
why wages and interest fail to increase with increase of pro- 
ductive power. For the wealth produced in every community 
is divided into two parts by what may be called the rent line, 
which is fixed by the margin of cultivation, or the return 
which labor and capital could obtain from such natural 
opportunities as are free to them without the payment of rent. 
From the part of the produce below this line wages and 
interest must be paid. All that is above goes to the owners 
of land. Thus, v/here the valu.e of land is low, there may be a 
small production of wealth, ana yet a high rate of wages and 
interest, as we see in new cour tries. And, where the value of 
land is high, there may be 9. very large production of wealth, 
and yet a low rate of via^^s and interest, as we see in old 
countries. And, where pr?X' active power increases, as it is 
increasing in all progre^'pivp, countries, wages and interest will 
be affected, not by +^^p '/ncrease, but by the manner in 
which rent is affect«.X, If the value of land increases pro- 
portionately, all tb'^' increased production will be swal- 
lowed up by rent, and wages and interest will remain as 
before.. If the v^-lue oi land increases in greater ratio than 
productive pqwer rsnt will swallow up even more than the 
increase ; ai^ wl"u'e fhe produce of labor and capital will be 
much larger^ wages and interest will fall. It is only when 
the v^lue of land fads to increase as rapidly as productive 
povve'--, th-r.^ "i-'K'>^-es and interest can increase with the increase 
of prr'durvi'.e power. All this is exemplified in actual fact. 



INTEREST AND THE CAUSE OF INTEREST. 127 



CHAPTER III. 

OF INTEREST AND THE CAUSE OF INTEREST. 

Having made sure of the law of rent, we have obtained as 
its necessary corollary the law of wages, where the division is 
between rent and wages ; and the law of wages and interest 
taken together, where the division is between the three factors. 
What proportion of the produce is taken as rent must deter- 
mine what proportion is left for wages, if but land and labor 
are concerned ; or to be divided between wages and interest, 
if capital joins in the production. 

But without reference to this deduction, let us seek each of 
these laws separately and independently. If, when obtained 
in this way, we find that they correlate, our conclusions will 
have the highest certainty. 

And, inasmuch as the discovery of the law of wages is the 
ultimate purpose of our inquiry, let us take up first the sub- 
ject of interest. 

I have already alluded to the difference in meaning be- 
tween the terms profits and interest. It may be worth while, 
further, to say that interest, as an abstract term in the dis- 
tribution of wealth, differs in meaning from the word as com- 
monly used, in this : That it includes all returns for the use 
of capital, and not merely those that pass from borrower to 
lender ; and that it excludes compensation for risk, which 
forms so great a part of what is commonly called interest. 
Compensation for risk is evidently only an equalization of 
return between different emplo3aiients of capital. What we 
want to find is, what fixes the general rate of interest proper? 
The different rates of compensation for risk added to this 
will give the current rates of commercial interest. 

Now, it is evident that the greatest differences in what is 
ordinarily called interest are due to differences in risk ; but it 
is also evident that between different countries and different 
times there are also considerable variations in the rate of in- 
terest proper. In California at one time two per cent a 
month would not have been considered extravagant interest 
on security on which loans could now be effected at seven o'v 
eight per cent per annum, and though some part of the ^iiu 



S28 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTIONS 

ence may be due to an increased sense of gene- n stability,- 
the greater part is evidently due to some other general cause. 
In the United States generally, the rate of interest has been 
higher than in England ; and in the newer States of the 
Union higher than in the older States ; and the tendency of 
interest to sink as society progresses is well marked and 
has long been noticed. What is the law which will bind all 
these variations together and exhibit their cause ? 

It is not worth while to dwell mr re than has hitherto inci- 
dentally been done upon the failure oi the current political 
economy to determine the true law of interet:t. Its specula- 
tions upon this subject have not the definiteness and coher- 
ency which have enabled the accepted doctrine of wages to 
withstand the evidence of fact, and do not require the same 
elaborate review. That they run counter to the facts is evi- 
dent. That interest does not depend on the productiveness 
of labor and capital is proved by the general fact that where 
labor and capital are most productive interest is lowest. 
That it does not depend reversely upon wages (or the cost of 
labor), lowering as wages rise, and increasing as wages fall, is 
proved by the general fact that interest is high when and 
where wages are high, and low when and where wages are 
low. 

Let us begin at the beginning. The nature and functions 
of capital have already been sufficiently shown, but even at 
the risk of something like a disgression, let us endeavor to 
ascertain the cause of interest before considering its law. 
For in addition to aiding our inquiry by giving us a firmer 
and clearer grasp of the subject now in hand, it may lead to 
conclusions whose practical importance will be hereafter ap- 
parent. 

What is the reason and justification of interest ? Why 
should the borrower pay back to the lender more than he 
received ? These questions are worth answering, not merely 
from their speculative, but from their practical importance. 
The feeling that interest is the robbery of industry is wide- 
spread and growing, and on both sides of the Atlantic shows 
itself more and more in popular literature and in popular 
movements. The expounders of the current political economy 
say that there is no conflict between labor and capital, and 
oppose as injurious to labor, as well as to capital, all schemes for 
restricting the reward which capital obtains ; yet in the same 
works the doctrine is laid down that wages and interest bear 
to each other an inverse relation, and that interest will be low 



INTEREST AND THE CAUSE OF INTEREST. 129 

or high as wages are high or low.* Clearly, then, if this 
doctrine is correct, the only objection that from the stand- 
point of the laborer can be logically made to any scheme 
for the reduction of interest is that it will not work, which is 
manifestly very weak ground while ideas of the omnipotence 
of legislatures are yet so widespread ; and though such an 
objection may lead to the abandonment of any one particular 
scheme, it will not prevent the search for another. 
, Why should interest be ? Interest, we are told, in all the 
standard works, is the reward of abstinence. But, manifestly, 
this does not sufficiently account for it. Abstinence is not 
an active, but a passive quality ; it is not a doing — it is simply 
a not doing. Abstinence in itself produces nothing. Why, 
then, should any part of what is produced be claimed for it ? 
If I have a sum of money which I lock up for a year, I have 
exercised as much abstinence as though I had loaned it. 
Yet, though in the latter case I will expect it to be returned 
to me with an additional sum by way of interest, in the former 
I will have but the sarrve sum, and no increase. But the 
abstinence is the same. If it be said that in lending it I do 
the borrower a service, it may be replied that he also does 
me. a service in keeping it safely — a service that under some 
conditions may be very valuable, and for which I would 
willingly pay, rather than not have it ; and a service which, 
as to some forms of capital, may be even more obvious than as 
to money. For there are many forms of capital which will not 
keep, but must be constantly renewed ; and many which are 
onerous to maintain if one has no immediate use for them. 
So, if the accumulator of capital helps the user of capital by loan- 
ing it to him, does not the user discharge the debt in full 
when he hands it back? Is not the secure preservation, the 
maintenance, the re-creation of capital, a complete offset to 
the use ? Accumulation is the end and aim of abstinence. 
Abstinence can go no further and accomplish no more ; nor of 
itself can it even do this. If we were merely to abstain from 
using it, how much wealth would disappear in a year ? And how 
little would be left at the end of two years ? Hence, if more 
is demanded for abstinence than the safe return of capital, 
is not labor wronged ? Such ideas as these underlie the wide- 
spread opinion that interest can only accrue at the expense 
of labor, and is in fact a robbery of labor which in a social 
condition based on justice would be abolished. 

The attempts to refute these views do not appear to me 

* This is really said of profits, but with the evident meaning of returns to capital. 

9 



130 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

always successful. For instance, as it illustrates the usual 
reasoning, take Bastiat's oft-quoted illustration of the plane. 
One carpenter, James, at the expense of ten days labor, 
makes himself a plane, which will last in use for 290 of the 
300 working days of the year. William, another carpenter, 
proposes to borrow the plane for a year, offering to give 
back at the end of that time, when the plane will be worn 
out, a new plane equally as good. James objects to lending 
the plane on these terms, urging that if he merely gets back 
a plane he will have nothing to compensate him for the loss 
of the advantage which the use of the plane during the year 
would give him. William, admitting this, agrees not merely 
to return a plane, but, in addition, to give James a new plank. 
The agreement is carried out to mutual satisfaction. The 
plane is used up during the year, but at the end of the year, 
James receives as good a one, and a plank in addition. He 
lends the new plane again and again, until finally it passes 
into the hands of his son, " who still continues to lend it," 
receiving a plank each time. This plank, which represents 
interest, is said to be a natural and equitable remuneration, 
as by giving it in return for the use of the plane, William 
" obtains the power which exists in the tool to increase the 
productiveness of labor," and is no worse off than he would 
have been had he not borrowed the plane ; while James 
obtains no more than he would have had if he had retained 
and used the plane instead of lending it. 

Is this really so ? It will be observed that it is not affirmed 
that James could make the plane and William could not, for 
that would be to make the plank the reward of superior skill. 
It is only that James had abstained from consuming the re- 
sult of his labor until he had accumulated it in the form of a 
plane — which is the essential idea of capital. 

Now, if James had not lent the plane he could have used 
it for 290 days, when it would have been worn out, and he. 
would have been obliged to take the remaining ten days of 
the working year to make a new plane. If William had not 
borrowed the plane he would have taken ten days to make 
himself a plane, which he could have used for the remaining 
290 days. Thus, if we take a plank to represent the fruits 
of a day's labor with the aid of a plane, at the end of the 
year, had no borrowing taken place, each would have stood 
with reference to the plane as he commenced, James with a 
plane, and William with none, and each would have had as 
the result of the year's work 290 planks. If th-^ *^ndition 



INTEREST AND THE CAUSE OF INTEREST, 13 1 

of the borrowing had been what William first proposed, the 
return of a new plane, the same relative situation would have 
been secured. William would have worked for 290 days, and 
taken the last ten days to make the new plane to return to 
James. James would have taken the first ten days of the 
year to make another plane which would have lasted for 290 
days, when he would have received a new plane from Willianio 
Thus, the simple return ot the plane would have put each In 
the same position at the end of the year as if no borrowing 
had taken place. James would have lost nothing to the gain 
of William, and William would have gained nothing to the 
loss of James. Each would have had the return his labor 
would otherwise have yielded — viz., 290 planks, and James 
would have had the advantage with which he started, a new 
plane. 

But when, in addition to the return of a plane, a plank is 
given, James at the end of the year will be in a better posi- 
tion than if there had been no borrowing, and William in a 
worse. James will have 291 planks and a new plane, and 
William 289 planks and no plane. If William now borrow 
the plank as well as the plane, on the same terms as before, 
he will at the end of the year have to return to James a plane 
two planks and a fraction of a plank, and if this difference 
be again borrowed, and so on, is it not evident that the in- 
come of the one will progressively decline, and that of the 
other will progressively increase, until the time will come when, 
as the result of the original lending of a plane, James will 
obtain the whole result of William's labor — that is to say, 
William will become virtually his slave ? 

Is interest, then, natural and equitable ? There is nothing 
in this illustration to show it to be. Evidently what Bastiat 
(and many others) assigns as the basis of interest, " the 
power which exists in the tool to increase the productiveness 
of labor," is neither in justice nor in fact the basis of inter- 
est. The fallacy which makes Bastiat's illustration pass as 
conclusive with those who do not stop to analyze it, as we 
•have done, is that with the loan of the plane they associate 
the transfer of the increased productive power which a plane 
gives to labor. But this is really not involved. The essen- 
tial thing which James loaned to William was not the in- 
creased power which labor acquires from using planes. To 
suppose this, we should have to suppose that the making and 
using of planes was a trade secret or a patent right, when the 
illustration would become one of monopoly, not of capital. 



132 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION, 

The essential thing which James loaned to WiUiam was not 
the ot-^vilege of applying his labor in a more effective wa)^, 
but the use of the concrete result of ten days labor. If 
" til? power which exists in tools to increase the productive- 
ness of labor " were the cause of interest, then the rate of 
interest would increase with the march of invention. This is 
not so ; nor yet will I be expected to pay more interest if £ 
borrow a fifty dollar sewing machine than if I borrow fiftv 
dollars worth of needles, if I borrow a steam engine than if' 
I borrow a pile of bricks of equal value. Capital, like wealth, 
is interchangeable. It is not one thing; it is anything to that 
value within the circle of exchange. Nor yet does the im- 
provement of tools add to the reproductive power of capital ; 
it adds to the productive power of labor. 

And I am inclined to think that if all wealth consisted of 
such things as planes, and all production was such as that of 
carpenters — that is to say, if wealth consisted but of the inert 
matter of the universe, and production of working up this inert 
matter into different shapes, that interest would be but the 
robbery of industry, and could not long exist. This is not to 
say that there would be no accumulation, for though the hope 
of increase is a motive for turning wealth into capital, it is not 
the motive, or at least, not the main motive, for accumulating. 
Children will save their pennies for Christmas ; pirates will 
add to their buried treasure ; Eastern jDrinces will accumulate 
hoards of coin ; and men like Stewart or Vanderbilt, having 
become once possessed of the passion of accumulating, would 
continue as long as they could to add to their millions, even 
though accumulation brought no increase. Nor yet is it to 
say that there would be no borrowing or lending, for this, to 
a large extent, would be prompted by mutual convenience^ 
If William had a job of work to be immediately begun and 
James one that would not commence until ten days there- 
after, there might be a mutual advantage in the loan of the 
plane though no plank should be given. 

But all wealth is not of the nature of planes, or planks, or 
money, nor is all production merely the turning into other 
forms of the inert matter of the universe. It is true that if I 
put away money, it will not increase. But suppose, instead, 
I put away wine. At the end of a year I will have an 
increased value, for the wine will have improved in quality. 
Or supposing that in a country adapted to them, I set out 
be^is ; at the end of a year I will have more swarms of bees, 
ii,j*»4the honey which they have made. Or, supposing, wher^ 



INTEREST AND THE CAUSE OF INTEREST. 13;^ 

there is a range, I turn out sheep, or hogs, or cattle ; at the 
end of the year I will, upon the average, also have an 
increase. 

Now what gives the increase in these cases is something 
which, though it generally requires labor to utilize it, is yet 
distinct and separable from labor — the active power of nature ; 
the principle of growth, of reproduction, which everywhere 
characterizes all the forms of that mysterious thing or condi- 
tion which we call life. And it seems to me that it is this 
which is the cause of interest, or the increase of capital over 
and above that due to labor. There are, so to speak, in the 
movements which make up the everlasting flux of nature, cer- 
tain vital currents, which will, if we use them, aid us, with a 
force independent of our own efforts, in turning matter into 
the forms we desire — that is to say, into wealth. 

While many things might be mentioned which, like money, 
or planes, or planks, or engines, or clothing, have no innate 
power of increase, yet other things are included in the terms 
wealth and capital which, like wine, will of themselves 
increase in quality up to a certain point ; or, like bees or 
cattle, will of themselves increase in quantity ; and certain 
other things, such as seeds, which, though the conditions 
which enable them to increase may not be maintained, with- 
out labor, yet will, when these conditions are maintained, 
yield an increase, or give a return over and above that which 
is to be attributed to labor. 

Now the interchangeability of wealth necessarily involves 
an average between all the species of wealth of any special 
advantage which accrues from the possession of any particu- 
lar species, for no one would keep capital in one form when 
it could be changed into a more advantageous form. No one, 
for instance, would grind wheat into flour and keep it on 
hand for the convenience of those who desire from time to 
time to exchange wheat or its equivalent for flour, unless he 
could by such exchange secure an increase equal to that 
which, all things considered, he could secure by planting his 
wheat. No one, if he could keep them, would exchange a 
flock of sheep now for their net weight in mutton to be re- 
turned next year ; for by keeping the sheep he would not 
only have the same amount of mutton next year, but also the 
lambs and ihe fleeces. No one would dig an irrigating ditch, 
unless those who by its aid are enabled to utilize the repro- 
ductive forces of nature would give him such a portion of the 
increase they receive as to make his capital yield him as 



134 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

much as theirs. And so, in any circle of exchange, the power 
of increase which the reproductive or vital force of nature 
gives to some species of capital must average with all ; and 
he who lends or uses in exchange, money, or planes, or bricks, 
or clothing, is not deprived of the power to obtain an in- 
crease, any more than if he had lent or put to a reproductive 
use so much capital in a form capable of increase. 

There is also in the utilization of the variations in the 
powers of nature and of man which is effected by exchange, 
an increase which somewhat resembles that produced by the 
vital forces of nature. In one place, for instance, a given 
amount of labor will secure 200 in vegetable food or 100 in 
animal food. In another place, these conditions are reversed, 
and the same amount of labor will produce 100 in vegetable 
food or 200 in animal. In the one place, the relative value 
of vegetable to animal food will be as two to one, and in the 
other as one to two ; and, supposing equal amounts of each to 
be required, the same amount of labor will in either place 
secure 150 of both. But by devoting labor in the one place 
to the procurement of vegetable food, and in the other to the 
procurement of animal food, and exchanging to the quantity 
required, the people of each place will be enabled by the 
given amount of labor to procure 200 of both, less the losses 
and expenses of exchange ; so that in each place the produce 
which is taken from use and devoted to exchange brings 
back an increase. Thus Whittington's cat, sent to a far 
country where cats are scarce and rats are plenty, returns in 
bales of goods and bags of gold. 

Of course, labor is necessary to exchange, as it is to the 
utilization of the reproductive forces of nature, and the 
produce of exchange, as the produce of agriculture, is clearly 
the produce of labor ; but yet, in the one case as in the other, 
there is a distinguishable force co-operating with that of labor, 
which makes it impossible to measure the result solely by the 
amount of labor expended, but renders the amount of capital 
and the time it is in use integral parts in the sum of forces. 
Capital aids labor in all of the different modes of production^ 
but there is a distinction between the relations of the two in 
such modes of production as consist merely of changing the 
form or place of matter, as planing boards or mining coal ; 
and such modes of production as avail themselves of the 
reproductive forces of nature, or of the power of increase 
arising from differences in the distribution of natural and 
human powers, such as the raising of grain or the exchange 



INTEREST AND THE CAUSE OF INTEREST. 135 

of ice for sugar. In production of the first kind, labor alone 
is the efficient cause ; when labor stops, production stops. 
When the carpenter drops his plane as the sun sets, the 
increase of value, which he with his plane is producing, ceases 
until he begins his labor again the following morning. When 
the factory bell rings for closing, when the mine is shut down, 
production ends until work is resumed. The intervening 
tune, so far as regards production, might as well be blotted 
out. The lapse of days, the change of seasons, is no element 
in the production that depends solely upon the amount of 
labor expended. But in the other modes of production to 
which I have alluded, and in which the part of labor may be 
likened to the operations of lumbermen who throw their logs 
into the stream, leaving it to the current to carry them to the 
boom of the saw mill many miles below, time is an element. 
The seed in the ground germinates and grows while the 
farmer sleeps or plows new fields, and the ever-flowing 
currents of air and ocean bear Whittington's cat toward the 
rat-tormented ruler in the regions of romance. 

To recur now to Bastiat's illustration. It is evident that if 
there is any reason why William at the end of the year should 
return to James more than an equally good plane, it does not 
spring, as Bastiat has it, from the increased power which the 
tool gives to labor, for that, as I have shown, is not an 
element; but it springs from the element of time — the differ- 
ence of a year betweeu the lending and return of the plane. 
Now, if the view is confined to the illustration, there is nothing 
to suggest how this element should operate, for a plane at the 
end of the year has no greater value than a plane at the 
beginning. But if we substitute for the plane a calf, it is 
clearly to be seen that to put James in as good a position as 
if he had not lent, William at the end of the year must return, 
not a calf, but a cow. Or, if we suppose that the ten days' 
labor had been devoted to planting corn, it is evident that 
James would not have been fully recompensed if at the end 
of the year he had received simply so much planted corn, for 
during the year the planted corn would have germinated and 
grown and multiplied ; and so if the plane had been devoted 
to exchange, it might during the year have been turned over 
several times, each exchange yielding an increase to James. 
Now, therefore, as James' labor might have been applied in 
any of those ways — or what amounts to the same thing, some 
of the labor devoted to making planes might be thus tran3- 
ferred — he will not make a plane for William to use for the 



136 THE LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

year unless he gets back more than a plane. And Williara 
can afford to give back more than a plane, because the same 
general average of the advantages of labor applied in different 
modes will enable him to obtain from his lal3or an advantage 
from the element of time. It is this general averaging, or as 
we may say, " pooling" of advantages, which necessarily takes 
place where the exigencies of society require the simultaneous 
carrying on of the different modes of production, which gives 
to the possession of wealth incapable in itself of increase an 
advantage similar to that which attaches to wealth used in 
such a way as to gain from the element of time. And, in the 
last analysis, the advantage which is given by the lapse of 
time springs from the generative force of nature and the 
varying powers of nature and of man. 

Were the quality and capacity of matter everywhere 
uniform, and all productive power in man, there would be no 
interest. The advantage of superior tools might at times be 
transferred on terms resembling the payment of interest, but 
such transactions would be irregular and intermittent — the 
exception, not the rule. For the power of obtaining such 
returns would not, as now, inhere in the possession of capital, 
and the advantage of time would only operate in peculiar 
circumstances. That I, having a thousand dollars, can cer- 
tainly let it out at interest, does not arise frcm the fact that 
there are others, not having a thousand dollars, who will 
gladly pay me for the use of it, if they can get it no other way ; 
but from the fact that the capital which my thousand dollars 
represents has the power of vielding an increase to whoever 
has it, even though he be a millionaire. For the price which 
anything will bring does not depend upon what the buyer 
would be willing to give rathei than go without it, so much 
as upon what the seller can otherwise get. For instance, a 
manufacturer who wishes to retire from business has 
machinery to the value of $100,000. If he cannot, should he 
sell, take this $100,000 and invest it so that it will yield him 
interest, it will be immaterial to him, risk being eliminated, 
whether he obtains the whole price at once or in installments, 
and if the purchaser has the requisite capital, which we must 
suppose in order that the transaction may rest on its own 
merits, it will be immaterial whether he pay at once or after 
a time. If the purchaser has not the required capital, it may 
be to his convenience that payments should be delayed, but it 
would be only in exceptional circumstances that the seller 
would ask, or that the buyer would consent, to pay any 



INTEREST AND THE CAUSE OF INTEREST. 137 

pri «iium on this account ; nor in such cases would this pre- 
mi ill be properly interest. For interest is not properly a 
p3 ment made for the use of capital, but a return accruing 
fn ta the increase of capital. If the capital did not yield an 
in -rease, the cases would be few and exceptional in which 
tl t owner would get a premium. William would soon find 
Q It if it did not pay him to give a plank for the privilege of 
' eferring payment on James' plane. 

In short, when we come to analyze production we find it to 
fall into three modes — viz : 

Adapting, or changing natural products either in form oi 
in place so as to ftt them for the satisfaction of human desire. 

Growing, or utilizing the vital forces of nature, as by rais- 
ing vegetables or animals. 

Exchanging, or utilizing, so as to add to the general sum 
of wealth, the higher powers of those natural forces which 
vary with locality, or of those human forces which vary with 
situation, occupation, or character. 

In each of these three modes of production capital may aid 
labor — or, to speak more precisely, in the first mode capital 
may aid labor, but is not absolutely necessary ; in the others 
capital must aid labor, or is necessary. 

- Now, while by adapting capital in proper forms we may 
increase the effective power of labor to impress upon matter 
the character of wealth, as when we adapt wood and iron to 
the form and use of a plane ; or iron, coal, water, and oil to 
the form and use of a steam engine ; or stone, clays timber, 
and iron to that of a building, yet the characteristic of this 
use of capital is, that the benefit is in the use. When, how- 
ever, we employ capital in the second of these modes, as 
when we plant grain in the ground, or place animals on a 
stock farm, or put away wine to improve with age, the benefit 
arises, not from the use, but from the increase. And so, when 
we employ capital in the third of these modes, and instead of 
using a thing we exchange it, the benefit is in the increase or 
greater value of the things received in return. 

Primarily, the benefits which arise from use go to labor, 
and the benefits which arise from increase, to capital. But, 
inasmuch as the division of labor and the interchangeability 
of wealth necessitate and imply an averaging of benefits, in 
so far as these different modes of production correlate with 
each other, the benefits that arise from one will average with 
the benefits that arise from the others, for neither labor nor 
capital will be devoted to any mode of production while any 



1 38 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

?)ther mode which is open to them will yield a greater return. 
That is to say, labor expended in the first mode of production 
will get, not the whole return, but the return minus such part 
as is necessary to give to capital such an increase as it could 
have secured in the other modes of production, and capital 
engaged in the second and third modes will obtain, not the 
whole increase, but the increase minus what is sufficient to 
give to labor such reward as it could have secured if expended 
■ in the first mode. 

Thus interest springs from the power of increase which the 
reproductive forces of nature, and the in effect analogous 
capacity for exchange, give to capital. It is not an arbitrary, 
but a natural thing ; it is not the result of a particular social 
organization, but of laws of the universe which underlie 
society. It is, therefore, just. 

They who talk about abolishing interest fall into an error 
similar to that previously pointed out as giving its plausi- 
bility to the doctrine that wages are drawn from capital. 
When they thus think of interest, they think only of that 
which is paid by the user of capital to the owner of capital. 
But, manifestly, this is not all interest, but only some interest. 
Whoever uses capital and obtains the increase it is capable of 
giving receives interest. If I plant and care for a tree until 
it comes to maturity, I receive, in its fruit, interest upon the 
capital I have thus accumulated — that is, the labor I have 
expended. If I raise a cow, the milk which she yields me 
morning and evening, is not merely the reward of the labor 
then exerted ; but interest upon the capital which my labor, 
expended in raising her, has accumulated in the cow. And 
so, if I use my own capital in directly aiding production, as 
6y machinery, or indirectly aiding production, in exchange, I 
receive a special and distinguishable advantage from the 
reproductive character of capital, which is as real, though 
perhaps not as clear, as though I had lent my capital to 
another and he had paid me interest. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF SPURIOUS CAPITAL AND OF PROFITS OFTEN MISTAKEN FOR 

INTEREST. 

The belief that interest is the robbery of industry is, I am 
'persuaded, in large part due to a failure to discriminate 



OF SPURIOUS CAPITAL AND INTEREST. 139 

between what is really capital and what is not, and between 
profits which are properly interest and profits which arise 
from other sources than the use of capital. In the speech 
and literature of the day every one is styled a capitalist who 
possesses what, independent of his labor, will yield him a 
return, while whatever is thus received is spoken of as the 
earnings or takings of capital, and we everywhere hear of 
the conflict of labor and capital. Whether there is, ia 
reality, any conflict between labor and capital, I do not yet 
ask the reader to make up his mind ; but it will be well here 
to clear away some misapprehensions which confuse the 
judgment. 

Attention has already been called to the fact that land 
values, which constitute such an enormous part of what is 
commonly called capital, are not capital at all ; and that 
rent, which is as commonly included in the receipts of cap- 
ital, and which takes an ever increasing portion of the pro- 
duce of an advancing community, is not the earnings of cap- 
ital, and must be carefully separated from interest. It is 
not necessary now to dwell further upon this point. Atten- 
tion has likewise been called to the fact that the stocks, bonds 
etc., which constitute another great part of what is commonly 
called capital, are not capital at all ; but, in some of their 
shapes, these evidences of indebtedness so closely resemble 
capital, and in some cases actually perform, or seem to perform.^ 
the functions of capital, while they yield a return to their own* 
ers which is not only spoken of as interest, but has every 
semblance of interest, that it is worth while, before attempting 
to clear the idea of interest from some other ambiguities that 
beset it, to speak again of these at greater length. 

Nothing can be capital, let it always be remembered, that 
is not wealth — that is to say, nothing can be capital that does 
not consist of actual, tangible things, not the spontaneous 
offerings of nature, which have in themselves, and not by 
proxy, the power of directly or indirectly ministering to 
human desire. 

Thus, a government bond is not capital, nor yet is it the 
representative of capital. The capital that was once received 
for it by the government has been consumed unproductively 
— blown away from the mouths of cannon, used up in war 
ships, expended in keeping men marching and drilling, kill- 
mg and destroying. The bond cannot represent capital 
that has been destroyed. It does not represent capital at all. 
^k is simply a solemn declaration that the government 



140 THF. LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

will, some time or other, take by taxation from the then exist- 
ing stock of the people, so much wealth, which it will turn 
over to the holder of the bond ; and that, in the meanwhile, 
it will, from time to time, take, in the same way, enough to 
make up to the holder the increase which so much capital as 
it some day promises to give him would yield him were it 
actually in his possession. The immense sums which are 
thus taken from the produce of every modern country to pay 
interest on public debts are not the earnings or increase of 
capital — are not really interest in the strict sense of the term, 
but are taxes levied on the produce of labor and capital leaving 
SO much less for wages and so much less for real interest. 

But, supposing the bonds have been issued for the deepen- 
ing of a river bed, the construction of lighthoi ses, or the 
erection of a public market ; or supposing, to embody the 
same idea while changing the illustration, they have been 
issued by a railroad company. Here they do represent capi- 
tal, existing and applied to productive uses, and like stock in 
a dividend paying company may be considered as evidences 
of the ownership of capital. But they can only be so con- 
sidered in so far as they actually represent capital, and not 
as they have been issued in excess of the capital used. 
Nearly all our railroad companies and other incorporations 
are loaded down in this way. Where one dollar's worth of 
capital has been really used, certificates for two, three, four, 
five, or even ten have been issued, and upon this fictitious 
amount interest or dividends are paid with more or lesH 
regularity. Now, what, in excess of the amount due as inter- 
est to the real capital invested, is thus earned by these com- 
panies and thus paid out, as well as the large sums absorbed 
by managing rings and never accounted for, is evidentl}^ 
not taken from the aggregate produce of the community on 
account of the services rendered by capital — it is not interest. 
If we are restricted to the terminology of economic writers 
who decompose profits into interest, insurance, and wages oi 
superintendence, it must fall into the category of wages oi 
superintendence. 

But while wages of superintendence clearly enough include 
the income derived from such personal qualities as skill, 
tact, enterprise, organizing ability, inventive power, charac-^ 
ter, etc., to ^■e profits we are speaking of there is another 
contributing element, which can only arbitrarily be classed 
with these — the element of monopoly. 

When James I granted to his minion the exclusive privilege 



OF SPURIOUS CAPrrAL AND INTEREST. 147 

of making gold and silver thread, and prohibited, under 
severe penalties, every one else from making such thread, the 
income which Buckingham enjoyed in consequence did not 
arise from the interest upon the capital invested in the manu- 
facture, nor from the skill, etc., of those who really conduct- 
ed the operations, but from what he got from tne King — viz., 
the exclusive privilege — in reality the power to levy a tax for 
his own purposes upon all the users of such thread. Fiom 
a similar source come a large part of the profits which are 
commonly confounded with the earnings of capital. Receipta 
from the patents granted for a limited term of years for the 
purpose of encouraging invention are clearly attributable to 
this source, as are the returns derived from monopolies crea- 
ted by protective tariffs under the pretense of encouraging 
home industry. But there is another far more insidious and 
far more general form of monopoly. In the aggregation of 
large masses of capital under a common control there is de- 
veloped a new and essentially different power from that power 
of increase which is a general characteristic of capital and 
which gives rise to interest. While the latter is, so to speak, 
constructive in its nature, the power which, as aggregation 
proceeds, rises upon it is destructive. It is a power of the 
same kind as that which James granted to Buckingham, and 
it is often exercised with as reckless a disregard, not only of 
the industrial, but of the personal rights of individuals. A 
railroad company approaches a small town as a highwayman 
approaches his victim. The threat, ''If you do not accede to 
our terms we will leave your town two or three miles to one 
side ! " is as efficacious as the " stand and deliver," when 
backed by a cocked pistol. For the threat of the railroad 
company is not merely to deprive the tov/n of the benefits 
which the railroad might give ; it is to put it in a far worse 
position than if no railroad had been built. Or if, where 
there is water communication, an opposition boat is put on ; 
rates are reduced until she is forced off, and then ^he public 
are compelled to pay the cost of the operation, just as the 
Pvohillas were obliged to pay the forty lacs with which Sujah 
Dowlah hired of Warren Hastings an English force to assist 
him in desolating their country and decimating their people. 
And just as robbers unite to plunder in concert and divide the 
spoil, so do the trunk lines of railroad unite to raise rates and 
pool their earnings, or the Pacific roads form a combination 
with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company by which toll gates 
are virtuall}^ established on land and ocean. And just as Buck- 



142 THE LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION'. 

ingham's creatures, under authority of the gold thread patent, 
searched private houses, and seized papers and persons foi 
purposes of hist and extortion, so does the great telegraph 
company which, by the power of associated capital deprives 
the people of the United States of the full benefits of a be- 
neficent invention, tamper with correspondence and crush out 
newspapers which offend it. 

It is only necessary to allude to these things, not to dwell 
on them. Every one knows the tyranny and rapacity with 
which capital when concentrated in large amounts is frequently 
wielded to corrupt, to rob, and to destroy. What I wish 
to call the reader's attention to is that profits thus derived 
are not to be confounded with the legitimate returns of capital 
as an agent of production. They are, for the most part, to 
be attributed to a maladjustment of forces in the legislative 
department of government, and to a blind adherence to 
ancient barbarisms and the superstitious reverence for the 
technicalities of a narrow profession in the administration of 
law ; while the general cause which in advancing communi- 
ties tends, with the concentration of wealth, to the concentra- 
tion of power, is the solution of the great problem we are 
seeking for, but have not yet found. 

Any analysis will show that much of the profits which are, 
in common thought, confounded with interest are in reality 
due, not to the power of capital, but to the power of concen- 
trated capital, or of concentrated capital acting upon bad 
social adjustments. And it will also show that what are clearly 
and properly wages of superintendence are very frequently 
confounded with the earnings of capital. 

And, so, profits properly due to the elements of risk are 
frequently confounded with interest. Some people acquire 
wealth by taking chances which to the majority of people 
must necessarily bring loss. Such are many forms of specu- 
Iition, and especially that mode of gambhng known as stock 
dealing. Nerve, judgment, the possession of capital, skill Li 
what in lower forms of gambling are known as the arts of the 
confidence man and blackleg, give advantage to the individual , 
but, just as at a gaming table, whatever one gains some one 
else must lose. 

Now, taking the great fortunes that are so often referred to 
as exemplifying the accumulative power of capital — the Dukes 
of Westminster and Marquises of Bute, the Rothschilds, 
Astors, Stewarts, Vanderbilts, Goulds, Stanfords, and Floods 
—it is upon examination readily seen that th<»y have been 



THE LA W OF INTEREST, 145 

bnilt lip, in greater or less part, not by interest, but by ele- 
ments such as we have been re^dewing. 

How necessary it is to note the distinctions to which I 
have been calling attention is shown in current discussions, 
where the shield seems alternately white or black as the stand- 
point is shifted from one side to the other. On the one hand 
we are called upon to see, in the existence of deep poverty 
side by side with vast accumulations of wealth, the aggres- 
sions of capital on labor, and in reply it is pointed out that 
capital aids labor, and hence we are asked to conclude that 
there is nothing unjust or unnatural in the wide gulf between 
rich and poor , that wealth is but the reward of industry, 
intelligence, and thrift ; and poverty but the punishment oi 
indolence, ignorance, and imprudence. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE l.K'N OF INTEREST. 

Let us turn now to the law of interest, keeping in mind 
two things to which attention has heretofore been called — ' 
viz : 

First — That it is not capital which employs labor, but labor 
which employs capital. 

Second — That capital is not a fixed quantity, but can 
always be increased or decreased, (i) by the greater or less 
application of labor to the production of capital, and (2) by 
the conversion of wealth into capital, or capital into wealth, 
for capital being but wealth applied in a certain way, wealth 
is the larger and inclusive term. 

It is manifest that under conditions of freedom the maxi- 
mum that can be given for the use of capital will be the 
increase it will bring, and the minimum or zero will be the 
replacement of capital , for above the one point the borrow- 
ing of capital would involve a loss, and below the other, 
capital could not be maintained. 

Observe, again, it is not, as is carelessly stated by some 
writers, the increased efficiency given to labor by the adaption 
of capital to any special form or use which fixes this maxi- 
mum, but the average power of increase which belongs to 
capital generally. The power of applying itself in advan- 
tageous forms is a power of labor, which capital as capital 



£4i THE LA IVS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

cannot claim nor share. A bow and arrows will enable an 
Indian to kill, let us say, a buffalo every day, while with sticks 
and stones he could hardly kill one in a week ; but the 
weapon maker of the tribe could not claim from the hunter 
six out of every seven buffaloes killed as a return for the 
use of a bow and arrows ; nor will capital invested in a 
woolen factory yield to the capitalist the difference between 
the produce of the factory and what the same amount of 
labor could have obtained with the spinning-wheel and hand- 
loom. William when he borrows a plane from James does 
not in that obtain the advantage of the increased efficiency 
of labor when using a plane for the smoothing of boards 
over what it has when smoothing them with a shell or flint. 
The progress of knowledge has made the advantage involved 
in the use of planes a common property and power of labor. 
What he gets from James is merely such advantage as the 
element of a year's time will give to the possession of so 
miich capital as is represented by the plane. 

Now, if the vital forces of nature which give an advantage 
to the element of time be the cause of interest, it would seem 
to follow that this maximum rate of interest would be deter- 
mmed by the strength of these forces and the extent to which 
they are engaged in production. But while the reproductive 
force of nature seems to vary enormously, as, for instance, 
between the salmon, which spawns thousands of eggs, and the 
whale, which brings forth a single calf at intervals of years , 
between the rabbit and the elephant, the thistle and the 
gigantic redwood, it appears from the way the natural balance 
is maintained that there is an equation between the repro- 
ductive and destructive forces of nature, which in effect 
brings the principle of increase to a uniform point. This 
natural balance man has within narrow limits the power to 
disturb, and by the modifications of natural conditions may 
avail himself at will of the varying strength of the reproduc- 
tive force in nature. But when he does so, there arises from 
the wide scope of his desires another principle which brings 
about in the increase of wealth a similar equation and 
balance to that which is effected in nature between the 
different forms of life. This equation exhibits itself through 
values. If, in a country adapted to both, I go to raising 
rabbits and you to raising horses, my rabbits may, until the 
natural limit is reached, increase faster than your horses. 
But my capital will not increase faster, for the effect of the 
varying rates of increase will be to lower the value of rabbits 



THE LA W OF INTEREST, 145 

as compared with horses, and to increase the value of horses 
as compared with rabbits. 

Though the varying strength of the vital forces of nature 
are thus brought to uniformity, there may be a difference in 
the different stages of social development as to the proper 
tionate extent to which, in the aggregate production of wealth, 
these vital forces are enlisted. But as to this, there are. two 
remarks to be made. In the first place, although in such a 
country as England the part taken by manufactures in the 
aggregate wealth production has very much increased as 
compared with the part taken by agriculture, yet it is to be 
noticed that to a very great extent this is only true of the 
political or geographical division, and not of the industrial 
community. For industrial communities are not limited by 
political divisions, or bounded by seas or mountains. They 
are only limited by the scope of their exchanges, and the 
proportion which in the industrial economy of England 
agriculture and stock-raising bear to manufactures is 
averaged with Iowa and Illinois, with Texas and California, 
with Canada and India, wdth Queensland and the Baltic — in 
short, with every country to wdiich the world-wide exchanges 
of England extend. In the next place, it is to be remarked 
that although in the progress of civilization the tendency is 
to the relative increase of manufactures, rs compared with 
agriculture, and consequently to a proportion :.tely less reliance 
upon the reproductive forces of nature, ycv this is accom- 
panied by a corresponding extension of exchanges, and 
hence a greater calling in of the power of increase which 
thus arises. So these tendencies, to a great extent, and, 
probably, so far as we have yet gone, completely, balance 
each other, and preserve the equilibrium which fixes the 
average increase of capital, or the normal rate of interest. 

Now, this normal point of interest, wdiich lies between the 
necessary maximum and the necessary minimum of the 
return to capital, must, wherever it rests, be such that all 
things (such as the feeling of security, desire for accumula- 
tion, etc.) considered, the reward of capital and the reward 
of labor will be equal — that is to say, will give an equally 
attractive result for the exertion or sacrifice involved. It is 
impossible, perhaps, to formulate this point, as wages are 
habitually estimated in quantity and interest in a ratio ; but 
if we suppose a given quantity of wealth to be the produce of 
a given amount of labor, co-operating for a stated time with 
a certain amount of capital, the proportion in which the pro- 
10 



146 THE LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

duce would be divided between the labor and the capital 
would afford a comparison. There must be such a point at, 
or rather, about, which the rate of interest must tend to 
settle ; since, unless such an equilibrium were effected, labor 
would not accept the use of capital, or capital would not be 
placed at the disposal of labor. For labor and capital are 
but different forms of the same thing — human exertion. 
Capital is produced by labor ; it is, in fact, but labor 
impressed upon matter — labor stored up in matter, to be 
released again as needed, as the heat of the sun stored up in 
coal is released in the furnace. The use of capital in 
production is, therefore, but a mode of labor. As capital 
can only be used by being consumed, its use is the expendi- 
ture of labor, and for the maintenance of capital, its 
production by labor must be commensurate with its consump- 
tion in aid of labor. Hence the principle that, under 
circumstances which permit free competition, operates to 
bring wages to a common standard and profits to a 
substantial equality — the principle that men will seek to 
gratify their desires with the least exertion — operates to 
establish and maintain this equilibrium between wages and 
interest. 

This natural relation between interest and wages — this 
equilibrium at which both will represent equal returns to 
equal exertions — ma}^ be stated in a form which suggests a 
relation of opposition ; but this opposition is only apparent. 
In a partnership between Dick and Harry, the statement 
that Dick receives a certain proportion of the profits implies 
that the portion of Harry is less or greater as Dick 3 is 
greater or less ; but where, as in this case, each gets only 
what he adds to the common fund, the increase of the portion 
of the one does not decrease what the other receives. 

And this relation fixed, it is evident that interest and 
wages must rise and fall together, and that interest cannot be 
increased without increasing \vages ; nor wages lowered 
without depressing interest. For if wages fall, interest must 
also fall in proportion, else it becomes more profitable to 
turn labor into capital than to apply it directly ; while, if 
interest falls, wages must likewise proportionately fall, or 
else the increment of capital would be checked. 

We are, of course, not speaking of particular wages and 
particular interest, but of the general rate of wages and the 
general rate of interest (meaning alwa3^s by interest the 
return which capital can secure, less insurance and wages of 



THE LA W OF INTEREST. 147 

superintendence). In a particular case, or a particular 
employment, the tendency of wages and interest to an 
equilibrium may be impeded ; but between the general rate 
of wages and the general rate of interest, this tendency 
must be prompt to act. For though in a particular branch 
of production the line may be clearly drawn between those 
who furnish labor and those who furnish capital, yet even 
in communities where there is the sharpest distinction 
between the general class laborers and the general class 
capitalists, these two classes shade off into each other by 
imperceptible gradations, and on the extremes where the two 
classes meet in the same persons, the interaction which 
restores equilibrium, or rather prevents its disturbance, can 
go on without obstruction, whatever obstacles may exist 
where the separation is complete. And, furthermore, it must 
be remembered, as has before been stated, that capital is but 
a portion of wealth, distinguished from wealth generally only 
by the purpose to which it is applied, and, hence, the whole 
body of wealth has upon the relations of capital and labor 
the same equalizing effect that a fly-wheel has upon the 
motion of machinery, taking up capital when it is in excess 
and giving it out again when there is a deficiency, just as a 
jeweler may give his wife diamonds to wear when he has a 
superabundant stock, and put them in his show-case again 
when his stock becomes reduced. Thus any tendency on the 
part of interest to rise above the equilibrium with wages 
must immediately beget not only a tendency to direct labor 
to the production of capital, but also the application of 
wealth to the uses of capital : while any tendency of wages 
to rise above the equilibrium with interest must in like 
manner beget not only a tendency to turn labor from the pro- 
duction of capital, but also to lessen the proportion of 
capital by diverting from a productive to a non-productive 
use some of the articles of wealth of which capital is 
composed. 

T(5 recapitulate : There is a certain relation or ratio 
between wages and interest, fixed by causes which, if not 
absolutely permanent, slowly change, at which enough labor 
will be turned into capital to supply the capital which, in the 
degree of knowledge, state of the arts, density of population, 
character of occupations, variety, extent and rapidity of 
exchanges, will be demanded for production, and this relation 
or ratio the interaction of labor and capital constantly 



148 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

maintains ; hence interest must rise and fall with the rise'and 
fall of wages. 

To illustrate : The price [of flour is determined by the 
price of wheat and cost of milling. The cost of milling 
varies slowly and but little, the difference being, even at 
long intervals, hardly perceptible ; while the price of wheat 
varies frequently and largely. Hence we correctly say that 
die price of flour is governed by the price of wheat. Or, to 
put the proposition in ihe same form as the preceding: 
There, is a certain relation or ratio between the value of 
wheat and the value of flour, fixed by the cost of milling, 
which relation or ratio the interaction between the demand 
for flour and the supply of wheat constantly maintains ; 
hence the price of flour must rise and fall with the rise and 
fall of the price of wheat. 

Or, as, leaving the connecting link, the price of wheat, to 
inference, we say that the price of flour depends ujDon the 
character of the seasons, wars, etc., so may we put the law 
of interest in a form which directly connects it with the law 
of rent, by saying that the general rate of interest will be 
determined by the return to capital upon the poorest land to 
which capital is freely applied — that is to say, upon the best 
land open to it without the payment of rent. Thus we 
bring: the law of interest into a form which shows it to be a 
corollary of the lav of rent. 

We may prove this conclusion in another way : For that 
interest must decrease as rent increases, we can plainly see 
if we eliminate wages. To do this, we must, to be sure, 
imagine a universe organized on totally different principles. 
Nevertheless, we may imagine what Carlyle would call a 
fool's paradise, where the production of wealth went on 
without the aid of labor, and solely by the reproductive 
force of capital — where sheep bore ready-made clothing on 
their backs, cows presented butter and cheese, and oxen, 
when they got to the proper point of fatness, carved them- 
selves into beefsteaks and roasting ribs ; where houses grew 
from the seed, and a jack-knife thrown upon the ground would 
take root and in due time bear a crop of assorted cutlery. 
Imagine certain capitalists transported, with their capital in 
appropriate forms, to such a place. Manifestly, they would 
only get, as the return for their capital, the whole amount of 
wealth it produced, so long as none of its produce vv-as 
demanded as rent. When rent arose, it would come out ol 
the produce of capital, and as it increased, the return to the 



ii'AGES AND THE LAW OF V/AGES. 149 

owners of capital must necessaril}/ diminish. If we imagine 
the place where capital possessed this power of producing 
wealth without the aid of labor to be of limited extent, say 
an island, we shall see that as soon as capital had increased 
to the limit of the island to support it, the return to capital 
must fall to a trifle above its minimum of mere replacement, 
and the land owners would receive nearly the whole produce 
as rent, for the only alternative capitalists would have would 
be to throw their capital into the sea. Or, if we imagine 
such an island to be in communication with the rest of the 
world, the return to capital would settle at the rate of return 
in other places. Interest there would be neither higher nor 
lower than anywhere else. Rent would obtain the whole of 
the superior advantage, and the land of such an island would 
have a great value. 

To sum up, the law of interest is this : 

The relation between wages and Interest Is determined by the 
average power of Increase which attaches to capital from its use 
in reproductive modes. As rent arrises, interest will fall as wages 
fall, or will be determined by the margiji of cultivation, 

I have endeavored at this length to trace out and illustrate 
the law of interest more in deference to the existing termin- 
ology and modes of thought than from the real necessities of 
our inquiry, were it unembarrassed by befogging discussions. 
In truth, the primary division of wealth in distribution is dual, 
not tripartite. Capital is but a form of labor, and its distinc- 
tion from labor is in reality but a subdivision, just as the di- 
vision of labor into skilled and unskilled would be. In our 
examination we have reached the same point as would have 
been attained had we simply treated capital as a form of labor, 
and sought the law which divides the produce between rent 
and wages ; that is to say, between the possessors of the two 
factors, natural substances and powers, and human exer- 
tion — which two factors by their union produce all 
wealth. 



CHAPTER VL 

WAGES AND THE LAW OF WAGES, 

We have by inference already obtained the law of wages, 
But to verify the deduction and to strip the subject of all am 



I50 TFIE LAWS OF distribution: 

biguities, let us seek the law from an independent starting 
point. 

There is, of course, no such thing as a common rate of 
wages, in the sense that there is at any given time and place 
a common rate of interest. Wages, which include all returns 
received from labor, not only vary with the differing powers 
of individuals, but, as the organization of society becomes 
elaborate, vary largely as between occupations. Neverthe- 
less, there is a certain general relation between all wages, so 
that we express a clear and well-understood idea when we say 
that wages are higher or lower in one time or place than in 
another. In their degrees, wages rise and fall in obedience 
to a common law. What is this law ? 

The fundamental principle of human action — the law that is 
to political economy what the law of gravitation is to physics 
— is that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exer- 
tion. Evidently, this principle must bring to an equality, 
through the competition it induces, the reward gained by 
equal exertions under similar circumstances. When men 
work for themselves, this equalization will be largely affected 
by the equation of prices ; and between those who work for 
themselves and those who work for others, the same tendency 
to equalization will operate. Now, under this principle, what, 
in conditions of freedom, will be the terms at which one man 
can hire others to work for him ? Evidently, they will be 
fixed by what the men could make if laboring for themselves. 
The principle which will prevent him from having to give 
anything above this except what is necesary to induce the 
change, will also prevent them from taking less. Did they 
demand more, the competition of others would prevent them 
from getting employment. Did he offer less, none would ac- 
cept the terms, as they could obtain greater results by work- 
ing for themselves. Thus, although the employer wishes to 
pay as little as possible, and the employee to receive as much 
as possible, wages will be fixed by the value or produce of 
such labor to the laborers themselves. If wages are tempor- 
arily carried either above or below this line, a tendency to 
carry them back at once arises. 

But the result, or the earnings of labor, as is readily seen 
in those primary and fundamental occupations in which 
labor first engages, and which, even in the most highly 
developed condition of society, still form the base of pro- 
duction, does not depend merely upon the intensity or quality 
of the labor itself. Wealth is the product of two factors. 



WAGES AND THE LAW OF WAGES. 151 

land and labor, and what a given amount of labor will yield 
will vary with the powers of the natural opportunities to 
which it is applied. This being the case, the principle that 
men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion will 
fix wages at the produce of such labor at the point of highest 
natural productiveness open to it. Now, by virtue of the 
same principle, the highest point of natural productiveness 
open to labor under existing conditions will be the lowest 
point at which production continues, for men, impelled by a 
supreme law of the human mind to seek the satisfaction of 
their desires with the least exertion, will not expend labor 
at a lower point of productiveness while a higher is open to 
them. Thus the wages which an employer must pay ^\ill be 
measured by the lowest point of natural productiveness to 
which production extends, and wages will rise or fall as this 
point rises or falls. 

To illustrate : In a simple state of society, each man, as is 
the primitive mode, works for himself — some in hunting, let 
us say, some in fishing, some in cultivating the ground. 
Cultivation, we will suppose, has just begun, and the land in 
use is all of the same quality, yielding a similar return to 
similar exertions. Wages, therefore — for, though there is 
neither employer nor employed, there are yet wages — will be 
the full produce of labor, and, making allowance for the 
difference of agreeableness, risk, etc., in the three pursuits, 
they will be on the average equal in each — that is to say, 
equal exertions will yield equal results. Now, if one of their 
number wishes to employ some of his fellows to work for 
him instead of for themselves, he must pay wages fixed by 
this full, average produce of labor. 

Let a period of tmie elapse. Cultivation has extended, 
and, instead of land of the same quality, embraces lands of 
different qualities. Wages, now, will not be as before, the 
average produce of labor. They will be the average produce 
of labor at the margin of cultivation, or the point of lowest 
return. For, as men seek to satisfy their desires with the 
least possible exertion, the point of lowest return in cultiva- 
tion must yield to labor a return equivalent to the average 
return in hunting and fishing. * Labor will no longer yield 
vjqual returns to equal exertions, but those who expend their 
labor on the superior land will obtain a greater produce for 
the same exertion than those who cultivate the inferior land. 
Wages, however, will still be equal, for this excess which the 

* This equalization will be effected by the equation of prices. 



152 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

cultivators of the superior land receive is in reality rent, and 
if land has been subjected to individual ownership will give it 
a value. Now, if under these changed circumstances, ona 
member of this community wishes to hire others to work for 
him, he will only have to pay v/hat the labor yields at the 
lowest point of cultivation. If thereafter the margin of 
cultivation sinks to points of lower and lower productiveness, 
so must wages sink ; if, on the contrary, it rises, so also must 
wages rise ; for, just as a free body tends to take the shortest 
route to the earth's centre, so do men seek the easiest mode 
to the gratification of their desires. 

Here, then, we have the law of wages, as a deduction from 
a principle most obvious and most universal. That wages 
depend upon the margin of cultivation — that they will be 
greater or less as the produce which labor can obtain from 
the highest natural opportunities open to it is greater or less, 
flows from the principle that men will seek to satisfy their 
wants with the least exertion. 

Now, if we turn from simple social states to the complex 
phenomena of highly civilized societies, we shall find upon 
examination that they also fall under this law. 

In such societies, wages differ widely, but they still bear a 
more or less definite and obvious relation to each other. 
This relation is not invariable, as at one time a philosopher 
of repute may earn by his lectures many fold the wages of the 
best mechanic, and at another can hardly hope for the pay of 
a footman ; as in a great city occupations may yield relatively 
high wages, which in a new settlement would yield relatively 
low wages,; yet these variations between wages may, under 
all conditions, and in spite of arbitrary divergences caused 
by custom, law, etc., be traced to certain circumstances. In 
one of his most interesting chapters, Adam Smith thus enu- 
merates the principal circumstances " which make up for a 
small pecuniary gain in some employments and counterbal- 
ance a great one in others ; First, the agreeableness or disa- 
greeableness of the employments themselves. Secondly, the 
easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of 
learning them. Thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of em 
ployment in them. Fourthly, the small or great trust which 
must be reposed in them. Fifthly, the probability or improb- 
ability of success in them.''* It is not necessary to dwell in 
detail on these causes of variation in wages betv/een different 

*This last, which is analogous to the element of risk in orofits, accounts for the 
high wages of successful lawyers, physicians, contractors, actors, etc. 



WAGES AND THE LAW OF WAGES. 153 

emplo3rment. They have been admirably explained and illus- 
trated by Adam Smith and the economists who have followed 
him, who have well worked out the details, even if they have 
failed to apprehend the main law. 

The effect of all the circumstances which give rise to the 
differences between wages in different occupations may be in- 
cluded as supply and demand, and it is perfectly correct to 
say that the wages in different occupations will vary relatively 
according to differences in the supply and demand of labor 
— meaning by demand the call which the community as a 
whole makes for services of the particular kind, and by sup 
ply the relative amount of labor which, under the existing 
conditions, can be determined to the performance of those 
particular services. But though this is true as to the relative 
differences of wages, when it is said, as is commonly said, 
that the general rate of wages is determined by supply and 
demand, the words are meaningless. For supply and dc' 
mand are but relative terms. The supply of labor can only 
mean labor offered in exchange for labor, or the produce of 
labor, and the demand for labor can only mean labor or the 
produce of labor offered in exchange for labor. Supply is 
thus demand, and demand supply, and, in the whole commu- 
nity, one must be co-extensive with the other. This is clearly 
apprehended by the current political economy in relation to 
sales, and the reasoning of Ricardo, Mill, and others, which 
proves that alterations in supply and demand cannot pro- 
duce a general rise or fall of values, though they may cause 
a rise or fall in the value of a particular thing, is as applicable 
to labor. What conceals the absurdity of speaking generally 
of supply and demand in reference to labor is the habit of 
considering the demand for labor as springing from capital 
and as something distinct from labor ; but the analysis to 
which this idea has been heretofore subjected has sufficiently 
shown its fallacy. It is indeed evident from the mere state- 
ment, that wages can never permanently exceed the produce 
of labor, and hence that there is no fund from v\'hich wages 
can for any time be drawn, save that which labor constantly 
creates. 

But, though all the circumstances which produce the 
differences in wages between occupations may be considered 
as operating through supply and demand, they (or, rather, 
their effects, for sometimes the same cause operates in both 
ways) may be separated into two classes, according as they 
tend only to raise apparent wages or as they tend to raise real 



154 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION, 

wages — that is, to increase the average reward for equal exe^ 
tion. The high wages of some occupations much resemble 
what Adam Smith compares tliem to, the prizes of a lottery, 
in which the great gain of one is made up from the losses of 
many others. This is not only true of the professions by 
means of which Dr. Smith illustrates the principle, but is 
largely true of l:he wages of superintendence in mercantile 
pursuits, as shown by the fact that over ninety per cent of 
the mercantile firms that commence business ultimately fail. 
The higJtier wages of those occupations which can only be 
prosecuted in certain states of the weather, or are otherwise 
intermittent and uncertain, are also of this class ; while differ- 
ences that arise from hardship, discredit, unheal thiness, etc., 
imply differences of sacrifice, the increased compensation for 
which only preserves the level of equal returns for equal 
exertions. All these differences are, in fact, equalizations, 
arising from circumstances which, to use the words of Adam 
Smith, " make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employ- 
ments and counterbalance a great one in others." But, be- 
sides these merely apparent differences, there are real differ- 
ences in wages between occupations, which are caused by the 
greater or less rarity of the qualities required — greater abili- 
ties or skill, whether natural or acquired, commanding on the 
average greater wages. Now, these qualities, whether natural 
or acquired, are essentially analogous to differences in 
strength and quickness in manual labor, and as in manual 
labor the higher wages paid the man who can do more would 
be based upon wages paid to those who can only do the aver- 
age amount, so wages in the occupations requiring superior 
abilities and skill must depend upon the common wages 
paid for ordinary abilities and skill. 

It is, indeed, evident from observation, as it must be from 
theory, that whatever be the circumstances which produce the 
difference of wages in different occupations, and although 
they frequently vary in relation to each other, producing, as 
between time and time, and place and place, greater or less 
relative differences, yet the rate of wages in one occupation is 
always dependent on the rate in another, and so on, down 
until the lowest and widest stratum of wages is reached, in 
occupations where the demand is more nearly uniform and in 
which there is the greatest freedom to engage. 

For, although barriers of greater or less difficulty may exist, 
the amount of labor which can be determined to any partic- 
ular pursuit is nowhere absolutely fixed. All mechanicg 



WAGES AND THE LAW OF WAGES. 155 

could act as laborers, and many laborers could readily 
become mechanics ; all storekeepers could act as shopmen, 
and many ohopmen could easily become storekeepers ; many 
farmers would, upon inducement, become hunters or miners, 
fishermen or sailors, and many hunters, miners, fishermen, 
and sailors know enough of farming to turn their hands to it 
on demand. In each occupation there are men who unite it 
with others, or who alternate between occupations, while the 
young men who are constantly coming in to fill up the ranks 
of labor are drawn in the direction of the strongest induce- 
ments, and least resistances. And further than this, all the 
gradations of wages shade into each other by imperceptible 
degrees, instead of being separated by clearly defined gulfs. 
The wages, even of the poorer paid mechanics, are generally 
higher than the wages of simjple laborers, but there are always 
some mechanics who do not, on the whole, make as much 
as some laborers ; the best paid lawyers receive much 
higher wages than the best paid clerks, but the best paid 
clerks make more than some lawyers, and in fact the worst 
paid clerks make more than the worst paid lawyers. Thus, 
on the verge of each occupation, stand those to whom the 
inducements between one occupation and another are so nicely 
balanced that the slightest change is sufficient to determine 
their labor in one direction or another. Thus, any increase 
or decrease in the demand for labor of a certain kind cannot, 
except temporarily, raise wages, in that occupation, above, 
nor depress them below, the relative level with wages in other 
occupations, which is determined by the circumstances previ- 
ously ad7erted to, such as relative agreeableness or continuity 
of employment, etc., etc. Even, as experience shows, where 
artificial barriers are imposed to this interaction, such as 
limiting laws, guild regulations, the establishment of caste, 
etc., they may interfere with, but cannot prevent, the mainte- 
nance of this equilibrium. They but operate as dams, which 
pile up the water of a stream above Us natural level, but can- 
not prevent its overflow. 

Thus, although they may from time to time alter in relation 
to each other, as the circumstances which determine relative 
levels change, yet it is evident that wages in all strata must 
ultimately depend upon wages in the lowest and widest stratum 
— the general rate of wages rising or falling as these rise or 
fall. 

Now, the primary and fundamental occupations, upon which, 
so to speak, all others are built up, are evidently those which 



156 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

procure wealth directly from nature ; hence the law of wages 
in them must be the general law of wages. And, as wages in 
such occupations clearly depend upon what labor can pioduce 
at the lowest point of natural productiveness to which it is 
habitually applied ; therefore, wages generally, depend upon 
the margin of cultivation, or, to put it more exactl}^, upon the 
highest point of natural productiveness to which labor is free 
to apply itself without the payment of rent. 

So obvious is this law that it is often apprehended without 
being recognized. It is frequently said of such counti ies as 
California and Nevada that cheap labor would enormously 
aid their development, as it would enable the working of the 
poorer but most extensive deposits of ore. A relation 
between low wages and a low point of production is perceived 
by those who talk in this way, but they invert cause and effect. 

It is not low wages which will cause the working of low-grade 
ore, but the extension of production to the lower point which 
v/ill diminish wages. If wages could be arbitrarily forced 
down, as has sometimes been attempted by statute, the poorei 
mines would not be worked so long as richer mines could be 
worked. But if the margin of production were arbitrarily 
forced down, as it might be, were the superior natural oppor- 
tunities in the ownership of those who chose rather to wait 
for future increase of value than to permit them to be used 
now, W3ges would necessarily fall. 

^he demonstration is complete. The law of wages we 
have thus obtained as the corollary of the law of rent, and it 
completely harmonizes with the law of interest. It is, that — 

Ty'ages depend upon the margm of production, or npo7i the 
produce which labor can obtain at the highest point of naturdi 
p7'oductiveness open to it without the payment of refit. 

This law of wages accords with and explains universal facts 
that without its apprehension seem unrelated and contradictory. 

It shows that : 

Where land is free and labor is unassisted b}^ capital, the 
whole produce will go to labor as wages. 

Where land is free and labor is assisted by capital, wages 
will consist of the whole produce, less that part necessary to 
induce the storing up of labor as capital. 

Where land is subject to ownership and rent arises, wages 
will be fixed by what labor could secure from tlie highest 



WAGES AND THE LAW OF WAGES. 157 

natural opportunities open to it without the payment of 
rent. 

Where natural opportunities are all monopolized, wages may 
be forced by the competition among laborers to the minimum 
at which laborers will consent to reproduce. 

This necessary minimum of wages (which by Smith and 
Ricardo is denominated the point of " natural wages," and by 
Mill supposed to regulate wages, which will be higher or lower 
as the working classes consent to reproduce at a higher or lower 
standard of comfort) is, however, included in the law of wages 
as previously stated, as it is evident that the margin of pro- 
duction cannot fall below that point at which enough will be 
left as wages to secure the maintenance of labor. 

Like Ricardo's law of rent, of which it is the corollary, 
this law of wages carries with it its own proof and becomes 
self-evident by mere statement. For it is but an application 
of the central truth that is the foundation of economic rea- 
soning — diat men will seek to satisfy their desires with the 
least exertion. The average man will not work for an em- 
ployer for less, all things considered, than he can earn by 
working for himself ; nor yet will he work for himself for less 
than he can earn by working for an employer, and hence the 
return which labor can secure from such natural opportunities 
as are free to it must fix the wages which labor everywhere 
gets. That is to say, the line of rent is the necessary measure 
of the line of wages. In fact, the accepted law of rent 
depends for its recognition upon a previous (though in many 
cases it seems to be an unconscious) acceptance of this law 
of wages. What makes it evident that land of a particulat 
quality will yield as rent the surplus of its produce over that 
of the least productive land in use, is the apprehension of 
the fact that the owner of the higher quality of land can pro- 
cure the labor to work his land by the payment of what that 
labor could produce if exerted upon land of the poorer 
quality. 

In its simpler manifestations, this law of wages is recog- 
nized by people who do not trouble themselves about po- 
litical economy, just as the fact that a heavy body would fall 
to the earth was long recognized by those who never thought 
of the law of gravitation. It does not require a philosopher 
to see that if in any country natural opportunities were thrown 
open which would enable laborers to make for themselves 
wages higher than the lowest now paid, the general rate of 
wages would rise ; vv/hile the most ignorant and stupid of the 



158 THE LA WS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

placer miners of early California knew that as the placers gave 
out or were monopolized, wages must fall. It requires no fine 
spun theory to explain why wages are so high relatively to 
production in new countries where land is yet unmonopolized. 
The cause is on the surface. One man will not work for 
another for less than his labor will really yield, when he can go 
upon the next quarter section and take up a farm for himself. 
-Itis only as land becomes monopolized and these natural oppor- 
tunities are shut off from labor, that laborers are obliged to 
compete with each other for employment, and it becomes 
possible for the farmer to hire hands to do his work while he 
maintains himself on the difference between what their labor 
produces and what he pays them for it. 

Adam Smith himself saw the cause of high wages where 
land was yet open to settlement, though he failed to appre- 
ciate the importance and connection of the fact. In treat- 
ing of the Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies (Chap- 
ter VII, Book IV, " Wealth of Nations,") he says : 

" Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent 
and scarce any taxes to pay, * * He is eager, therefore, to collect laborers 
from every quarter and to pay them the most liberal wages. But these libera'' 
wages, joined to the plenty and cheapness of land, soon make these laborers leave 
him in order to become landlords themselves, and to reward with equal liberality 
other laborers who soon leave them for the same reason thev left their first masters.' 

This chapter contains numerous expressions which, like the 
opening sentence in the chapter on The Wages of Labor, 
show that Adam Smith only failed to appreciate the true laws 
of the distribution of wealth because he turned away fron: 
the more primitive forms of society to look for first prin- 
ciples amid complex social manifestations, where he was blind- 
ed by a pre-accepted theory of the functions of capital, and, 
as it seems to me, by a vague acceptance of the doctrine which, 
two years after his death, was formulated by Malthus. And 
it is impossible to read the works of the economists who since 
the time of Smith have endeavored to build up and elucidate 
the science of political economy without seeing how, over 
and over again, they stumble over the law of wages without 
once recognizing it. Yet, " if it were a dog it would bite 
them ! " Indeed, it is difficult to resist the impression that 
some of them really saw this law of wages, but, fearful of the 
practical conclusions to which it would lead, preferred to 
ignore and cover it up, rather than use it as the key to prob 
Jems which without it are so perplexing. A great truth to an 
age which has rejected and trampled on it, is not a word of 
peace, but a sword ! 



CORRELATION OF THESE LAWS. 159 

Perhaps it may be well to remind the reader, before clos- 
ing this chapter, of what has been before stated — that I am 
using the word wages not in the sense of a quantity, but in 
the sense of a proportion. When I say that wages fall as rent 
rises, I do not mean that the quantity of wealth obtained by 
laborers as wages is necessarily less, but that the proportion 
which it bears to the whole produce is necessarily less. The 
proportion may diminish while the quanity remains the same 
or even increases. If the margin of cultivation descends 
from the productive point which we will call 25, to the pro- 
ductive point we will call 20, the rent of all lands that before 
paid rent will increase by this difference, and the proportion of 
the whole produce which goes to laborers as wages will to the 
same extent diminish ; but if, in the meantime, the advance 
of the arts or the economies that become possible with greater 
population have so increased the productive power of labor 
that at 20 the same exertion will produce as much wealth as 
before at 25^ laborers will get as wages as great a quantity as 
before, and the relative fall of wages will not be noticeable 
in any diminution of the necessaries or comforts of the laborer, 
but only in the increased value of land and the greater 
incomes and more lavish expenditure of the rent-receiving 
class. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CORRELATION AND CO-ORDINATION OF THESE LAWS. 

The conclusions we have reached as to the laws which 
govern the distribution of wealth recast a large and most 
important part of the science of political economy, as at 
present taught, overthrowing some of its most highly elabo- 
rated theories and shedding a new light on some of its most 
important problems. Yet, in doing this, no disputable ground 
has been occupied ; not a single fundamental principle ad- 
vanced that is not already recognized. 

The law of interest and the law of wages which we have 
substituted for those now taught are necessary deductions 
from the great law which alone makes any science of politi- 
cal economy possible — the all-compelling law that is as in- 
separable from the human mind as attraction is inseparable 
from matter, and without which it would be impossible to pre- 
vise or calculate upon any human action, the most trivial or 



i6o 



THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION, 



the most important. This fundamental law, that men seek to 
gratify their desires with the least exertion, becomes, when 
viewed in its relation to one of the factors of production, the 
law of rent ; in relation to another, the law" of interest ; and 
in relation to a third, the law of wages. And in accepting 
the law of rent, which, since the time of Ricardo, has been 
accepted by every economist of standing, and which, like a 
geometrical axiom, has but to be understood to compel assent, 
the law of interest and law of wages, as I have stated them, 
are inferentially accepted, as its necessary sequences. In 
fact, it is only relatively that they can be called sequences, as 
in the recognition of the law of rent they too must be recog- 
nized. For on what depends the recognition of the law of 
rent ? Evidently upon the recognition of the fact that the 
effect of competition is to prevent the return to labor and 
capital being anywhere greater than upon the poorest land in 
use. It is in seeing this that we see that the owner of land 
will be able to claim as rent all of its produce which exceeds 
what would be yielded to an equal application of labor and 
capital on the poorest land in use. 

The harmony and correlation of the laws of distribution 
as we have now apprehended them are in striking contrast 
with the v/ant of harmony which characterizes these laws 
as presented by the current political economy. Let us state' 
them side bv side : 



The Current Statement, 

Rent depends on the margin 
of cultivation, rising as it 
falls and falling as it rises. 

Wages depend upon the ratio 
between the number of la- 
borers and the amount of 
capital devoted to their em- 
ployment. 

Interest depends upon the 
equation between the sup- 
ply of and demand for 
capital ; or, as is stated of 
profits, upon wages (or the 
cost of labor), rising as 
wa'ges fall, and falling as 
wages rise. ^ 



The True Stateme7it. 

Rent depends on the margin 
of cultivation, rising as it 
falls and falling as it rises. 

Wages depend on the margin 
of cultivation, falling as it 
falls and risinp; as it rises. 



Interest (its ratio with wages 
being fixed by the net power 
of increase which attaches 
to capital) depends on the 
margin of cultivation, fall- 
ing as it falls a,ud rising as it 
rises. 



STATICS OF THE PROBLEM THUS EXPLAINED. i6i 

In the current statement the laws of distribution have no 
common centre, no mutual relation ; they are not the corre- 
lating divisions of a whole, but measures of different qualities. 
In the statement we have given, they spring from one point, 
support and supplement each other, and form the correlating 
divisions of a complete whole. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE STATICS OF THE PROBLEM THUS EXPLAINED. 

We have now obtained a clear, simple, and consistent 
theory of the distribution of wealth, which accords with first 
principles and existing facts, and which, when understood, 
will commend itself as self-evident. 

Before working out this theory, I have deemed it necessary 
to conclusively show the insufficiency of current theories ; 
for, in thought, as in action, the majority of men do but 
follow their leaders, and a theory of wages which has not 
merely the support of the highest names, but is firmly rooted 
in common opinions and prejudices, will, until it has been 
proved untenable, prevent any other theory from being even 
considered, just as the theory that the earth was the centre of 
the universe prevented any consideration of the theory that 
it revolves on its own axis and circles round the sun, until it 
was clearly shown that the apparent movements of the 
heavenly bodies could not be explained in accordance with 
the theory of the fixity of the earth. 

There is in truth a marked resemblance between the 
science of political economy, as at present taught, and the 
science of astronomy, as taught previous to the recognition 
of the Copernican theoiy. The devices by which the current 
political economy endeavors to explain the social phenomena 
that are now forcing themselves upon the attention of the 
civilized world may well be compared to the elaborate system 
of cycles and epicycles constructed by the learned to explain 
the celestial phenomena in a manner according with the dog- 
mas of authority and the rude impressions and prejudices of 
the unlearned. And, just as the observations which showed 
that this theory of cycles and epicycles could not explain all 
the phenomena of the heavens, cleared the way for the con- 
sideration of the simpler theory that supplanted it, so will a 



162 THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. 

recognition of the inadequacy of the current theories to 
account for social phenomena clear the way for the consider- 
ation of a theory that will give to political economy all the 
simplicity and harmony which the Copernican theory gave to 
the science of astronomy. 

But at this point the parallel ceases. That "the fixed and 
steadfast earth " should be really whirling through space with 
inconceivable velocity is repugnant to the first apprehensions 
of men in every state and situation ; but the truth I wish to 
make clear is naturally perceived, and has been recognized in 
the infancy of every people, being only obscured by the 
complexities of the civilized state, the warpings of selfi.sh 
interests, and the false direction which the speculations of the 
learned have taken. To recognize it, we have but to come 
back to first principles and heed simple perceptions. Nothing 
can be clearer than the proposition that the failure of wages 
to increase with increasing productive power is due to the 
increase of rent. 

Three things unite to production — labor, capital, and 
land. 

Three parties divide the produce — the laborer, the capi- 
talist, and the land owner. 

If, with an increase of production, the laborer gets no more 
and the capitalist no more, it is a necessary inference that 
the land owner reaps the whole gain. 

And the facts agree with the inference. Though neither 
wages nor interest anywhere increase as material progress 
goes on, yet the invariable accompaniment and mark of 
material progress is the increase of rent — the rise of land 
values. 

The increase of rent explains why wages and interest do 
not increase. The cause which gives to the land holder is 
the cause which denies to the laborer and capitalist. That 
wages and interest are higher in new than in old countries is 
not, as the standard economists say, because nature makes a 
greater return to the application of labor and capital, but 
because land is cheaper, and, therefore, as a smaller proper 
tion of the return is taken by rent, labor and capital can keep 
for their share a larger proportion of what nature does return. 
It is not the total produce, but the net produce, after rent 
has been taken from it, that determines what can be divided 
as wages and interest. Hence, the rate of wages and interest 
is evervwhere fixed, not so much by the productiveness of 
labor as by the vah^-^ of land. Wherever the value of land 



STATICS OF THE PROBLEM THUS EXPLAINED. 163 

is relatively low, wages and interest are relatively high; 
wherever land is relatively high, wages and interest are 
relatively low. 

If production had not passed the simple stage in which all 
labor is directly applied to the land and all wages are paid in its 
produce, the fact that when the land owner takes a larger 
portion the laborer must put up with a smaller portion could 
not be lost sight of. 

But the complexities of production in the civilized state, in 
which so great a part is borne by exchange, and so much 
labor is bestowed upon materials after they have been sepa- 
rated from the land, though they may to the unthinking 
disguise, do not alter the fact that all production is still the 
union of the two factors, land and labor, and that rent (the 
share of the land holder) cannot be increased except at the 
expense of wages (the share of the laborer) and interest (the 
share of capital). Just as the portion of the crop, which in 
the simpler forms of industrial organization the owner of 
agricultural land receives at the end of the harvest as his rent, 
lessens the amount left to the cultivator as wages and 
interest, so does the rental of land on which a manufacturing 
or commercial city is built, lessen the amount which can be 
divided as wages and interest between the labor and capital 
there engaged in the production and exchange of wealth. 

In short, the value of land depending wholly upon the 
power which its ownership gives of appropriating wealth 
created by labor, the increase of land values is always at the 
expense of the value of labor. And, hence, that the increase 
of productive power does not increase wages, is because it 
does increase the value of land. Rent swallows up the 
whole gain and pauperism accompanies progress. 

It is unnecessary to allude to facts. They will suggest 
themselves to tjie reader. It is the general fact, observable 
everywhere, that as the value of land increases, so does the 
contrast between wealth and want appear. It is the universal 
fact, that where the value of land is highest, civilization 
exhibits the greatest luxury side by side with the most 
piteous destitution. To see human beings in the most abject, 
the most helpless and hopeless condition, you must go, not to 
the unfenced prairies and the log cabins of new clearings in 
the backwoods, where man single-handed is commencing the 
struggle with nature, and land is yet worth nothing, but to 
the great cities, where the ownership of a little patch of 
ground is a fortune. 



BOOK IV. 

EFFECT OF MATERIAL PROGRESS UPON THE 
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 



,- u^^^^^^P' ^} ^? questionable "if all the mechanical inventions yet made have 
Uffhtened the day s toil of any human being.— Jo/ut Stuart Mill. 

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 

Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers. 

And that cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows : 

The young birds are chirping in the nest, 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows ; 

The young flowers are blowing toward the west — 
But the young, young children, O, my brothers, 

They are weeping bitterly ! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 
In the country of the free. 

— Mrs. Browning. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DYNAMICS OF THE PROBLEM YET TO SEEK. 

In identifying rent as the receiver of the increased produc- 
tion which material progress gives, but which labor fails to 
obtain ; in seeing that the antagonism of interests is not 
between labor and capital, as is popularly believed, but is in 
reality between labor and capital on the one side and land 
ownership on the othei, we have reached a conclusion that 
has most important practical bearings. But it is not worth 
while to dwell on them now, for we have not yet fully 
solved the problem which was at the outset proposed. To 
say that wages remain low because rent advances, is like 
saying that a steamboat moves because its wheels turn 
around. The further question is, what causes rent to 
advance ? What is the force or necessity that, as productive 
power increases, distributes a greater and greater proportion 
of the produce as rent ? 

The only cause pointed out by Ricardo as advancing rent 
is the increase of population, which by requiring larger 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE PROBLEM. 165 

supplies of food necessitates the extension of cultivation to 
inferior lands, or to points of inferior production on the same 
lands, and in current works of other authors attention is so 
exclusively directed to the extension of production from 
superior to inferior lands as the cause of advancing rents 
that Mr. Carey (followed by Professor Perry and others) has 
imagined that he has overthrown the Ricardian theory of 
rent by denying that the progress of agriculture is from 
better to worse lands.* 

Now, while it is unquestionably true that the increasing 
pressure of population which compels a resort to inferior 
points of production, will raise rents, and does raise rents, I 
do not think that all the deductions commonly made from 
this principle are valid, nor yet that it fully accounts for the 
increase of rent as material progress goes on. There are 
evidently other causes which conspire to raise rent, but which 
seem to have been wholly or partially hidden by the errone- 
ous views as to the functions of capital and genesis of wages 
which have been current. To see what these are, and how 
they operate, let us trace the effect of material progress 
upon the distribution of wealth. 

The changes which constitute or contribute to material 
progress are three : (i) increase in population ; (2) improve- 
ments in the arts of production and exchange ; (3) improve- 
ments in knowledge, education, government, police, manners, 
and morals, so far as they increase the power of producing 
wealth. Material progress, as commonly understood, consists 
of these three elements or directions of progression, in all 
of which the progressive nations have for some time past 
been advancing, though in different degrees. As, considered 
in the light of material forces or economies, the increase of 
knowledge, the betterment of government, etc., have the 
same effect as improvements in the arts, it will not be 
necessary in this view to consider them separately. What 
bearing intellectual or moral progress, merely as such, has 

* As to this, it may be worth while to say: (i) That the general fact, as 
shown by the progress of agriculture in the newer States of the Union and by 
the character of the land left out of cultivation in the older, is that the course 
of cultivation is from the better to the worse qualities of land. (2) That, whether 
the course of production be from the absolutely better to the absolutely worse 
lands or the reverse (and there is much !:o indicate that better or worse in this 
connection merely relates to our knowicdg-e, and that future advances may dis- 
cover compensating qualities in portions of the earth now esteemed most 
sterile), it is always, and from the nature of the human mind, must always tend to 
be, from land under existing conditions deemed better, to land under existing con- 
ditions deemed worse. (3) That Ricardo's law of rent does not depend upon the 
direction of the extension of cultivation, but upon the proposition that if land of 3- 
certain quality will yield something, land of a better quality will yield more. 



i66 EFFECTS OF MA TERIAL PROGRESS. 

upon our problem we may hereafter consider. We are at 
present dealing with material progress, to which these things 
contribute only as they increase wealth-producing power, 
and shall see their effects when we see the effect of 
improvements in the arts. 

To ascertain the effects of material progress upon the 
distribution of wealth, let us, therefore, consider the effects 
of increase of population apart from improvements in the 
arts, and then the effect of improvement in the arts apart 
from increase of population. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE EFFECT OF INCREASE OF POPULATION UPON THE DIS- 
TRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

The manner in which increasing population advances rent, 
as explained and illustrated in current treatises, is that the in- 
creased demand for subsistence forces production to inferior soil 
or to inferior productive points. Thus, if with a given popu- 
lation, the margin of cultivation is at 30, all lands of produc- 
tive power over 30 will pay rent. If the population be doubled, 
an additional supply is required, which cannot be obtained 
without an extension of cultivation which will cause lands to 
yield rent that before yielded none. If the extension be to 20, 
then all the land between 20 and 30 will yield rent, and have 
a value, and all land over 30 will yield increased rent and 
have increased value. 

It is here that the Malthusian doctrine receives from the 
current elucidations of the theory of rent the support of 
which I spoke when enumerating the causes that have 
combined to give that doctrine an almost undisputed sway in 
current thought. According to the Malthusian theory, the 
pressure of population against subsistence becomes progres- 
sively harder as population increases, and although two hands 
come into the world with every new mouth, it becomes, to use 
the language of John Stuart Mill, harder and hard.er for the 
new hands to supply the new mouths. According to 
Ricardo's theory of rent, rent arises from the difference in 
productiveness of the lands in use, and as explained by 
Ricardo and the economists who have followed him, the 
advance in rents, which, experience shows, accompanies 



INCREASE OF POPULA TION. 167 

increasing population, is caused by the inability of procuring 
more food except at a greater cost, which thus forces the 
margin of population to lower and lower points of production, 
commensurately increasing rent. Thus the two theories, 
as I have before explained, are made to harmonize and blend, 
the law of rent becoming but a special application of the more 
general law propounded by Malthus, and the advance of 
rents with increasing population a demonstration of its 
resistless operation. I allude to this incidentally, because it 
now lies in our way to see the misapprehension which has 
enlisted the doctrine of rent in the support of a theory to 
•which it in reality gives no countenance. The Malthusian 
theory has already been disposed of, and the cumulative 
disproof which will prevent the recurrence of a lingering 
doubt will be given when it is shown, further on, that the 
phenomena attributed to the pressure of population against 
subsistence would, under existing conditions, manifest them- 
selves were population to remain stationary. 

The misapprehension to which I now allude, and which, to 
a proper understanding of the effect of increase of population 
upon the distribution of wealth, it is necessary to clear up, is 
the presumption, expressed or implied in all the current 
reasoning upon the subject of rent in connection with 
population, that the recourse to lower points of production 
involves a smaller aggregate produce in proportion to the 
labor expended ; though that this is not always the case is 
clearly recognized in connection with agricultural improve- 
ments, which, to use the words of Mill, are considered " as a 
partial relaxation of the bonds which confine the increase of 
population." But it is not involved even where there is no 
advance in the arts, and the recourse to lower points of 
production is clearly the result of the increased demand of 
an increased population. For increased population, of itself, 
and without any advance in the arts, implies an increase in 
the productive power of labor. The labor of 100 men, other 
things being equal, will produce much more than one hundred 
times as much as the labor of one man, and the labor of 
1,000 men much more than ten times as much as the labor of 
100 men ; and, so, with every additional pair" of hands which 
increasing population brings, there is a more than proportion- 
ate addition to the productive power of labor. Thus, with an 
increasing population, there may be a recourse to lower 
natural powers of production, not only without any diminution 
in the average production of wealth as compared to labor, but 



i68 EFFECTS OF MATERIAL PROGRESS. 

without any diminution at the lowest point. If population be 
doubled, land of but 20 productiveness may yield to the 
same amount of labor as much as land of 30 productiveness 
could before yield. For it must not be forgotten (what often 
is forgotten) that the productiveness either of land or labor is 
not to be measured in any one thing, but in all desired things. 
A settler and his family may raise as much corn on land a 
hundred miles away from the nearest habitation as they 
could raise were their land in the centre of a populous 
district. But in the populous district they could obtain with 
the same labor as good a living from much poorer land, or 
from land of equal quality could make as good a living after 
paying a high rent, because in the midst of a large popula- 
tion their labor would have become more effective; not, 
perhaps in the production of corn, but in the production of 
wealth generally — or the obtaining of all the commodities and 
services which are the real object of their labor. 

But even where there is a diminution in the productiveness 
of [labor at the lowest point — that is to say, where the 
increasing demand for wealth has driven production to a 
lower point of natural productiveness than the addition to 
the power of labor from increasing population suffices to 
make up for — it does not follow that the aggregate production, 
as compared with the aggregate labor, has been lessened. 

Let us suppose land of diminishing qualities. The best 
would naturally be settled first, and as population increased 
production would take in the next lower quality, and so on. 
But, as the increase of population, by permitting greater 
economies, adds to the effectiveness of labor,^ the cause 
which brought each quality of land successively into cultiva- 
tion would at the same time increase the amount of wealth 
that the same quantity of labor could produce from it. But 
it would also do more than this — it would increase the power 
of producing wealth on all the superior lands already in 
cultivation. If the relations of quantity and quality were 
such that increasing population added to the effectiveness of 
labor faster than it compelled a resort to less productive 
qualities of land, though the margin of cultivation would fall 
and rent would rise, the minimum return to labor would 
increase. That is to say, though wages as a propor- 
tion would fall, wages as a quantity would rise. The 
average production of wealth would increase. If the 
relations were such that the increasing effectiveness of labor 
just compensated for the diminishing productiveness of the 



INCREASE OF POPULATION. i&\ 

land as it was called into use, the effect of increasing popu- 
lation would be to increase rent by lowering the margin of 
cultivation without reducing wages as a quantity, and to 
increase the average production. If we now suppose popula- 
tion still increasing, but, between the poorest quality of land 
in use and the next lower quality, to be a difference so great, 
that the increased power of labor which comes with the 
increased population that brings it into cultivation, cannot 
compensate for it — the minimum return to labor will be 
reduced, and with the rise of rents wages will fall, not only as 
a proportion, but as a quantity. But unless the descent in the 
quality of land is far more precipitous than we can well 
imagine, or than, I think, ever exists, the average production 
will still be increased, for the increased eifectiveness which 
comes by reason of the increased population that compels 
resort to the inferior quality of land, attaches to all labor, 
and the gain in the superior quantities of land will more than 
compensate for the diminished production on the quality 
last brought in. The aggregate wealth production, as com- 
pared with the aggregate expenditure of labor, will be greater, 
though its distribution will be more unequal. 

Thus, increase of population, as it operates to extend 
production to lower natural levels, operates *to increase rent 
and reduce wages as a proportion, and may or may not 
reduce wages as a quantity; while it seldom can, and 
probably never does, reduce the aggregate production of 
wealth as compared with the aggregate expenditure of labor, 
but on the contrary increases, and frequently largely increases 
it. 

But while the increase of population thus increases rent by 
lowering the margin of cultivation, it is a mistake to look 
upon this as the only mode by which rent advances as pop- 
ulation grows. Increasing population increases rent, without 
reducing the margin of cultivation ; and notwithstanding the 
dicta of such writers as McCulloch, who asserts that rent 
would not arise were there an unbounded extent of equally 
good land, increases it without reference to the natural quali- 
ties of land, for the increased powers of co-operation and ex- 
change which come with increased population are equivalent 
to — nay, I think we can say without metaphor, that they give 
— an increased capacity to land. 

I do not merely mean to say that, like an improvement in 
the methods or tools of production, the increased power 
which comes with increased population gives to the same 



i70 EFFECTS OF MA TERIAL PROGRESS. 

labor an increased result, which is equivalent to an increase 
in the natural powers of land ; but that it brings out a 
superior power in labor, which is localized on land — which 
attaches not to labor generally, but only to labor exerted on 
particular land ; and which thus inheres in the land as much 
as any qualities of soil, climate, mineral deposit, or natural 
situation, and passes, as they do, with the possession of the 
land. 

An improvement in the method of cultivation which, with 
the same outlay, will give two crops a year in place of one, or 
an improvement in tools and machinery which will double the 
result of labor, will manifestl}^, on a particular piece of 
ground, have the same effect on the produce as a doubling 
of the fertility of the land. But the difference is in this 
respect — the improvement in method or in tools can be util- 
ized on any land ; but the improvement in fertility can only 
be utilized on the particular land to which it applies. Now in,^ 
large part, the increased productiveness of labor which arises 
from increased population, can only be utilized on particular 
land, and on particular land in greatly varying degrees. 

Here, let us imagine, is an unbounded savannah, stretching 
off in unbroken sameness of grass and flower, tree and rill, 
till the traveler tires of the monotony. Along comes the 
wagon of the first immigrant. Where to settle he cannot tell 
— every acre seems as good as every other acre. As to wood,, 
as to water, as to fertility, as to situation, there is absolutely 
no choice, and he is perplexed by the embarrassment of rich- 
ness. Tired out with the search for one place that is better 
than another, he stops — somewhere, anywhere — and starts to 
make himself a home. The soil is virgin and rich, game is 
abundant, the streams flash with the finest trout. Nature is 
at her very best. He has what, were he in a populous dis- 
trict, would make him rich ; but he is very poor. To say 
nothing of the mental craving, which would lead him to 
welcome the sorriest stranger, he labors under all the material 
disadvantages of solitude. He can get no temporary assist- 
ance for any work that requires a greater union of strength 
than that afforded by his own family, or by such help as he 
can permanently keep. Though he has cattle, he cannot 
often have fresh meat, for to get a beefsteak he must kill a 
bullock. He must be his own blacksmith, wagonmaker, car- 
penter, and cobbler — in short, a " jack of all trades and mas- 
ter of none." He cannot have his children schooled, for, to 
do so, he must himself pay and mamtain a teacher. Such 



INCREASE OF POPULA TION. 1 7 1 

things as he cannot produce himself, he must buy in quantities 
and keep on hand, or else go without, for he cannot be con- 
stantly leaving his work and making a long journey to the 
verge of civilization ; and when forced to do so, the getting of 
a vial of medicine or the replacement of a broken auger may 
cost him the labor of himself and horses for days. Under 
such circumstances, though nature is prolific, the man is poor. 
It is an easy matter for him to get enough to eat ; but beyond 
this, his labor will only suffice to satisfy the simplest wants 
in the rudest way. 

Soon there comes another immigrant. Although every 
quarter section of the boundless plain is as good as every 
other quarter section, he is not beset by any embarrassment 
as to where to settle. Though the land is the same, there is 
one place that is clearly better for him than any other place, 
and that is where there is already a settler and he may have 
a neighbor. He settles by the side of the first comer, whose 
condition is at once greatly improved, and to whom many 
things are now possible that were before impossible, for two 
men may help each other to do things that one man could 
never do. 

Another immigrant comes, and guided by the same attrac- 
tion, settles where there are already two. Another, and 
another until around our first comer there are a score of 
neighbors. Labor has now an effectiveness which, in the 
solitary state, it could not approach. If heavy work is to be 
done, the settlers have a log-roiling, and together accomplish 
in a day what singly would require years. When one kills 
a bullock the others take part of it, returning when they kill, 
and thus they have fresh moit all the time. Together they 
hire a schoolmaster, and the children of each are taught for a 
fractional part of what similar teaching would have cost the 
first settler. It becomes a comparatively easy matter to send 
to the nearest town, for some one is always going. But there 
is less need for such journe3^s. A blacksmith and a Vv^heel- 
wright soon set up shops, and our settler can have his tools 
repaired for a small part of the labor they formerly cost him. 
A store is opened and he can get what he wants as he wants 
it ; a post-office, soon added, gives him regular communication 
with the rest of the world. Then comes a cobbler, a carpen- 
ter, a harnessmaker, a doctor ; and a little church soon arises. 
Satisfactions become possible that in the solitary state were 
impossible. There are gratifications for the social and the 
intellectual nature — for that part of the man that rises above 



172 EFFECTS OF MATERIAL PROGRESS. 

the animal. The power of sympathy, the sense of compan- 
ionship, the emulation of comparison and contrast, open a 
wider,, and fuller, and more varied life. In rejoicing, there 
are others to rejoice; in sorrow, the mourners do not mourn 
alone. There are husking bees, and apple parings, and 
quilting parties. Though the ballroom be unplastered and 
the orchestra but a fiddle, the notes of the magician are yet 
in the strain, and Cupid dances with the dancers. At the 
wedding, there are others to admire and enjoy ; in the house 
of death, there are watchers ; by the open grave, stands 
human sympathy to sustain the mourners. Occasionally, 
comes a straggling lecturer to open up glimpses of the world 
of science, of literature, or of art ; in election times, come 
stump speakers, and the citizen rises to a sense of dignity and 
power, as the cause of empires is tried before him in the 
struggle of John Doe and Richard Roe for his support and 
vote. And, by and by, comes the circus, talked of months 
before, and opening to children whose horizon has been the 
prairie, all the realms of the imagination — princes and prin- 
cesses of fairy tale, mail-clad crusaders and turbaned Moors, 
Cinderella's fairy coach, and the giants of nursery lore ; lions 
such as crouched before Daniel, or in circling Roman amphi- 
theatre tore the saints of God ; ostriches who recall the sandy 
deserts; camels such as stood around when the wicked 
brethren raised Joseph from the well and sold him into bond- 
age ; elephants such as crossed the Alps with Hannibal, or 
felt the sword of the Maccabees ; and glorious music that 
thrills and builds in the chambers of the mind as rose the 
sunny dome of Kubla Khan. 

Go to our settler now, and say to him : "You have so many 
fruit trees which you planted ; so much fencing, such a well, 
a barn, a house-^in short, you have by your labor added so 
much value to this farm. Your land itself is not quite so 
good. You have been cropping it, and by and by it will need 
manure. I will give you the full value of all your improve- 
ments if you will give it to me, and go again with your family 
beyond the verge of settlement." He would laugh at you. 
His land yields no more wheat or potatoes than before, but 
it does yield far more of all the necessaries and comforts of 
life. His labor upon it will bring no heavier crops, and, we 
will suppose, no more valuable crops, but it will bring far 
more of all the other things for which men work. The pres- 
ence of other settlers — the increase of population — has added 
to the productiveness, in these things, of labor bestowed upon 



INCREASE OF POPULA TION. 173 

it, and this added productiveness gives it a superiority over 
land of equal natural quality where there are yet no settlers. 
If no land remains to be taken up, except such as is as far 
removed from population as was our settler's land when he 
first went upon it, the value or rent of this land will be meas- 
ured by the whole of this added capability. If, however, as 
we have supposed, there is a continuous stretch of equal land, 
over which population is now spreading, it will not be neces- 
sary for the new settler to go into the wilderness, as did the 
first. He will settle just beyond the other settlers, and will 
get the advantage of proximity to them. The value or rent 
of our settler's land will thus depend on the advantage which 
it has, from being at the centre of population, over that on the 
verge. In the one case, the margin of production will remain 
as before; in the other, the margin of production will be 
raised. 

Population still continues to increase, and as it increases 
so do the economies which its increase permits,, and which in 
effect add to the productiveness of the land. Our first settler's 
land, being the centre of population, the store, the black- 
smith's forge, the wheelwright's shop, are set up on it, or on 
its margin, where soon arises a villas^e, which rapidly grows 
into a town, the centre of exchanges for people of the whole 
district. With no greater agricultural productiveness than it 
had at first, this land now begins to develop a productiveness 
of a higher kind. To labor expended in raising corn, or 
wheat, or potatoes, it will yield no more of those things than 
at first ; but to labor expended in the subdivided branches of 
production which require proximity to other producers, and, 
especially, to labor expended in that final part of production, 
which consists in distribution, it will yield much larger re- 
turns. The wheat-grower may go further on, and find land on 
which his labor will produce as much wheat, and nearly as 
much wealth; but the artisan, the manufacturer, the store- 
keeper, the professional man, find that their labor expended 
here, at the centre of exchanges, will yield them much more 
than if expended even at a little distance away from it ; and 
this excess of productiveness for such purposes the land- 
owner can claim,, just as he could an excess in its wheat- 
producing power. And so our settler is able to sell in build- 
ing lots a few of his acres for prices which it would not bring 
for wheat-growing if its fertility had been multiplied many 
times. With the proceeds, he builds himself a fine house, 
and furnishes it handsomely. That is to say, to reduce ihe 



174 EFFECTS OF MA TERIAL PROGRESS. 

transaction to its lowest terms, the people who wish to use 
the land, build and furnish the house for him, on condition 
that he will let them avail themselves of the superior produc- 
tiveness which the increase of population has given the land. 

Population still keeps on increasing, givmg greater and 
greater utility to the land, and more and more wealth to its 
owner. The town has grown into a city — a St, Louis, a Chi- 
cago or a San Francisco — and still it grows. Production is 
here carried on upon a great scale, with the best machinery 
and the most favorable facilities ; the division of labor be- 
comes extremely minute, wonderfully multiplying efficiency; 
exchanges are of such volume and rapidity that they are 
made with the minimum of friction and loss. Here is the 
heart, the brain, of the vast social organism that has grown 
up from the germ of the first settlement ; here has developed 
one of the great ganglions of the human world. Hither run 
all roads, hither set all currents, through all the vast regions 
round about. Here, if you have anything to sell, is the mar- 
ket; here if you have anything to buy, is the largest and 
the choicest stock. Here intellectual activity is gathered in- 
to a focus, and here springs that stimulus which, is born of 
the collision of mind with mind. Here are the great libra- 
ries, the storehouses and granaries of knowledge, the learned 
professors, the famous specialists. Here are museums and 
art galleries, collections of philosophical apparatus, and all 
things rare, and valuable, and best of their kind. Here come 
great actors, and orators, and singers, from all over the world. 
Here, in short, is a centre of human life, in all its varied 
manifestations. 

So enormous are the advantages which this land now offers 
for the application of labor, that instead of one man with a 
span of horses scratching over acres, you may count in places 
thousands of w^orkers to the acre, working tier on tier, on 
floors raised one above the other, five, six, seven and eight 
stories from the ground, while underneath the surface of the 
earth, engines are throbbing with pulsations that exert the 
force of thousands of horses. 

All these advantages adhere to the land ; it is on this land 
and no other, that they can be utilized, for here is the centre 
of population — the focus of exchanges, the market place and 
workshop of the highest forms of industry. The productive 
powers which density of population has attached to this land 
are equivalent to the multiplication of its original fertility by 
the hundred fold and the thousand fold. And rent, which 



'"' " INCREASE OF POPULATION. 175 

measures the difference between this added productiveness 
and that of the least productive land in use, has increased 
accordingly. Our settler, or whoever has succeeded to his 
right to the land, is now a millionaire. Like another Rip 
Van Winkle, he may have lain down and slept ; still he is 
rich — not from any thing he has done, but from the increase 
of population. There are lots from which for every foot of 
frontage the owner may draw more than an average mechanic 
can earn ; there are lots that will sell for more than would 
suffice to pave them with gold coin. In the principal 
streets are towering buildings, of granite, marble, iron, and 
plate glass, finished in the most expensive style, replete with 
every convenience. Yet they are not worth as much as the 
land upon which they rest — the same land, in nothing 
changed, which when our first settler came upon it had no 
value at all. 

That this is the way in which the increase of population 
powerfully acts in increasing rent, whoever, in a progressive 
country, will look around him, may see for himself. The 
process is going on under his eyes. The increasing difference 
in the productiveness of the land in use, which causes an 
increasing rise in rent, results not so much from the necessi- 
ties of increased population compelling the resort to inferior 
land, as from the increased productiveness which increased 
population gives to the lands already in use. The most 
valuable lands on the globe, the lands which 'yield the highest 
rent, are not lands of surpassing natural fertility, but lands to 
which a surpassing utility has been given by the increase of 
population. 

The increase of productiveness or utility which increase of 
population gives to certain lands, in the way to which I have 
been calling attention, attaches, as it were, to the mere qual- 
ity of extension. The valuable quality of land, which has 
become a centre of population is its superficia-1 capacity — it 
makes no difference whether it is fertile, alluvial soil like that 
of Philadelphia : rich bottom land like that of New Orleans ; 
a filled in marsh like that of St. Petersburg, or a sandy waste 
like the greater part of San Francisco. 

And where value seems to arise from superior natural qual- 
ities, such as deep water and good anchorage, rich deposits 
of -coal and iron, or heavy timber, observation also shows 
that these superior qualities are brought out, rendered tan- 
gible, by population. The coal and iron fields of Pennsylva- 
nia, that to-day are worth enormous sums, were fifty years 



176 EFFECTS OF MATERIAL PROGRESS. 

ago valueless. What is the efficient cause of the difference ? 
Simply the difference in population. The coal and iron beds 
of Wyoming and Montana, which to-day are valueless, will, in 
fifty years from now, be worth millions on millions, simply 
because, in the meantime, population will have greatly 
increased. 

It is a well provisioned ship, this on which we sail through 
space. If the bread and beef above decks seem to grow 
scarce, we but open a hatch and there is a new supply, of 
which before we never dreamed. And very great command 
over the services of others comes to those who as the hatches 
are opened are permitted to sa}^, " This is mine !" 

To recapitulate : The effect of increasing population upon 
the distribution of wealth is to increase rent (and conse- 
quently to diminish the proportion of the produce which goes 
to capital and labor), in two ways : First, By lowering the 
margin of cultivation. Second, By bringing out in land 
special capabilities otherwise latent, and by attaching special 
capabilities to particular lands. 

I am disposed to think that the latter mode, to which little 
attention has been given by political economists, is really the 
more important. But this, in our inquiry, is not a matter of 
moment. 



CHAPTER III, 



THE EFFECT OF IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ARTS UPON THE 
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

Eliminating improvements in the arts, we have seen the 
effects of increase of population upon the distribution of 
wealth. Eliminating increase of population; let us now see 
what effect improvements in the arts of production have 
upon distribution. 

We have seen that increase of population increases rent, 
rather by increasing the productiveness of labor than by 
decreasing it. If it can now be shown that, irrespective of 
the increase of population, the effect of improvements in 
methods of production and exchange is to increase rent, the 
disproof of the Malthusian theory — and of all the doctrines 
derived from or related to it— vviil be final and complete, foi 
we shall have accounted for tlie tendency of material progress 
to lower wages and depress the condition of the lowest class, 



IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ARTS. 177 

without recourse to the theory of increasmg pressure against 
the means of subsistence. 

That this is the case will, I think, appear on the slightest 
consideration. 

The effects of inventions and improvements in the produc- 
tive arts, is to save labor — that is, to enable the same result to 
be secured with less labor, or, a greater result with the same 
labor. 

Now, in a state of society in which the existing power of 
labor served to satisfy all material desires, and there was no 
possibility of new desires being called forth by the op- 
portunity of gratifying them, the effect of labor-saving im- 
provements would be simply to reduce the amount of labor 
expended. But such a state of society, if it can anywhere be 
found (which I do not believe), exists only where the human 
most nearly approaches the animal. In the state of society 
called civilized, and which in this inquiry we are concerned 
with, the very reverse is the case. Demand is not a fixed 
quantit}^, that increases only as population increases. In each 
individual it rises with his power of getting the things 
demanded. Man is not an ox, who, when he has eaten his fill, 
lies down to chew the cud ; he is the daughter of the horse 
feech, who constantly asks for more. " When I get some 
money," said Erasmus, " I will buy me some Greek books and 
afterwards some clothes." The amount of wealth produced 
ts nowhere commensurate with the desire for wealth, and 
desire mounts with every additional opportunity for gratifi- 
cation. 

This being the case, the effect of labor-saving improve- 
ments will be to increase the production of wealth. Now, 
for the production of wealth, two things are required — labor 
and land. Therefore, the effect of labor-saving improve- 
ments will be to extend the demand for land, and wherever 
the limit of the quality of land in use is reached, to bring 
into cultivation lands of less natural productiveness, or to 
extend cultivation on the same lands to a point of lower 
natural productiveness. And thus, while the primary effect 
of labor-saving improvements is to increase the power of 
labor, the secondary effect is to extend cultivation, and, where 
this lowers the margin of cultivation, to increase rent. Thus, 
where land is entirely appropriated, as in England, or where 
it is either appropriated or is capable of appropriation as 
rapidly as it is needed for use, as in the United States, the 

12 



^7» EFFECTS OF MA TERIAL PROGRESS. 

ultimate effect of labor-saving machinery or improvements 
is to increase rent without increasing wages or interest. 

It is important that this be fully understood, for it shows 
that effects attributed by current theories to increase of 
population are really due to the progress of invention, and 
explains the otherwise perplexing fact that labor-saving 
machinery everywhere fails to benefit laborers. 

Yet, to fully grasp this truth, it is necessary to keep in 
mind what I have already more than once adverted to — the 
interchangeability of wealth. I allude to this again, only 
because it is so persistently forgotten or ignored by writers 
who speak of agricultural production as though it were to 
be distinguished from production in general, and of food or 
subsistence as though it were not included in the term wealth. 

Let me ask the reader to bear in mind, what has already 
been sufficiently illustrated, that the possession or production 
of any form of wealth is virtually the possession or produc- 
tion of any other form of wealth for which it will exchange 
— in order that he may clearly see that it is not merely 
improvements which effect a saving in labol directly applied 
to land that tend to increase rent, but all improvements 
that in any way save labor. 

That the labor of any individual is applied exclusively to 
the production of one form of wealth is solely the result of 
the division of labor. The object of labor on the part of any 
individual is not the obtainment of wealth in one particular 
form, but the obtainment of wealth in all the forms that 
consort with his desires. And, hence, an improvement which 
effects a saving in the labor required to produce one of the 
things desired, is, in effect, an increase in the power of 
producing all the other things. If it take half a man's labor 
to keep him in food, and the other half to provide him clothing 
and shelter, an improvement which would increase his power 
of producing food would also increase his power of providing 
clothing and shelter. If his desire for more or better food, 
and for more or better clothing and shelter, were equal, an 
improvement in one department of labor would be precisely 
equivalent to a like improvement in the other. If the improve- 
ment consisted in a doubling of the power of his labor in produc- 
ing food, he would give one-third less labor to the production of 
food, and one-third more to the providing of clothing and shelter. 
If the improvement doubled his power to provide clothing 
and shelter, he would give one-third less labor to the produc- 
tion of these things, and one-third more to the production of 



IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ARTS. 179 

food. In either case, the result would be the same — he 
would be enabled with the same labor to get one-third more 
in quantity or quality of the things he desired. 

And, so, where production is carried on by the division of 
labor between individuals, an increase in the power of pro- 
ducing one of the things sought by production in the aggregate, 
adds to the power of obtaining others, and will increase the 
production of the others, to an extent determined by the pro- 
portion which the saving of labor bears to the total amount of 
labor expended, and by the relative strength of desires. I am 
unable to think of any form of wealth, the demand for which 
would not be increased by a saving in the labor required to 
produce the others. Hearses and coffins have been selected 
as examples of things for which the demand is little likely to 
increase ; but this is only true as to quantity. That increased 
power of supply would lead to a demand for more expensive 
hearses and coffins, no one can doubt who has noticed how 
strong is the desire to show regaid for the dead by costly 
funerals. 

Nor is the demand for food limited, as in economic reason- 
ing is frequently, but erroneously, assumed. Subsistence is 
often spoken of as though it were a fixed quantity ; but it is 
only fixed as having a definite minimum. Less than a certain 
amount will not keep a human being alive, and less than a some- 
what larger amount will not keep a human being in good health. 
But, above this minimum, the subsistence which a human being 
can use may be increased almost indefinitely. Adam Smith 
says, and Ricardo indorses the statement, that the desire for 
food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the 
human stomach; but this, manifestly, is only true in the sense 
that when a man's belly is filled, hunger is satisfied. His 
demands for food have no such limit. The stomach of a Louis 
XIV, a Louis XV, or a Louis XVI, could not hold or digest 
more than the stomach of a French peasant of equal stature, yet, 
while a few rods of ground would supply the black bread and 
herbs which constituted the subsistence of the peasant, it took 
hundreds of thousands of acres to supply the demands of the 
king, who, beside his own wasteful use of the finest qualities of 
food, required immense supplies for his servants, horses and 
dogs. And in the common facts of daily life, in the unsatis« 
fied, though perhaps latent, desires which each one has, we 
may see how every increase in the power of producing any 
form of wealth must result in an increased demand for land 
and the direct products of land. The man who now uses 



i8o EFFECTS OF MA TERIAL PROGRESS, 

coarse food and lives in a small house, will as a rule, if his 
income be increased, use more costly food, and move to a 
larger house. If he grows richer and richer, he will procure 
horses, servants, gardens and lawns, his demand for the use 
of land constantly increasing with his wealth. In the city 
where I write, is a man — but the type of men everywhere to 
be found — who used to boil his own beans and fry his own 
bacon, but who, now that he has got rich, maintains a town 
house that takes up a whole block and would answer for a first 
class hotel, two or three country houses with extensive 
grounds, a large stud of racers, a breeding farm, private track, 
etc., etc. It certainly takes at least a thousand times, it may 
be several thousand times, as much land, to supply the de- 
mands of this man now, as it did when he was poor. 

And, so, every improvement or invention, no matter what it 
be, which gives to labor the power of producing more wealth, 
causes an increased demand for land and its direct products, 
and thus tends to force down the margin of cultivation, just 
as would the demand caused by an increased population. 
This being the case, every labor-saving invention, whether it 
be a steam plow, a telegraph, an improved process of smelting 
ores, a perfecting printing press, or a sewing machine, has a 
tendency to increase rent. 

Or to state this truth concisely: 

Wealth in all its forms being the product of labor applied to 
land or the products ofla7id, any increase in the power of lab or , 
the demand for wealth bei7ig unsatisfied, will be utilized in pro- 
curing more wealthy and thus increase the demand for land. 

To illustrate this effect of labor-saving machinery and 
improvements, let us suppose a country where, as in all the 
countries of the civilized world, the land is in the possession 
of but a portion of the people. Let us suppose a permanent 
barrier fixed to further increase of population, either by the 
enactment and strict enforcement of an Herodian law, or 
from such a change in manners and morals as might result 
from an extensive circulation of Annie Besant's pamphlets. 
Let the margin of cultivation, or production, be represented 
by 20. Thus land or other natural opportunities which, from 
the application of labor and capital, will yield a return of 20, 
will just give the ordinary rate of wages and interest, with- 
out yielding any rent, while all lands yielding to equal appli- 
cations of labor and capital more than 20, will yield the 
excess as rent Population remaining fixed, let there be 



IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ARTS. i8i 

made inventions and improvements which will reduce by one- 
tenth the expenditure of labor and capital necessary to pro- 
duce the same amount of wealth. Now, either one-tenth of 
the labor and capital may be freed, and production remain 
the same as before ; or the same amount of labor and capital 
may be employed, and production be correspondingly increased. 
But the industrial organization, as in all civilized coun- 
tries, is such that labor and capital, and especially labor, 
must press for employment on any terms- -the industrial 
organization is such that mere laborers are not in a position 
to demand their fair share in the new adjustment, and that 
any reduction in the application of labor to production will, at 
first, at least, take the form, not of giving each laborer the same 
amount of produce for less work, but of throwing some of the 
laborers out of work and giving them none of the produce. 
Now, owing to the increased efficiency of labor secured by 
the new improvements, as great a return can be secured at 
the point of natural productiveness represented by i8, as 
before at 20. Thus, the unsatisfied desire for wealth, the 
competition of labor and capital for employment, would insure 
the extension of the margin of production, we will say to 18, 
and thus rent would be increased by the difference between 
18 and 20, while wages and interest, in quantity, would be 
no more than before, and, in proportion to the whole produce, 
would be less. There would be a greater production of 
wealth, but land owners would get the whole benefit (subject 
to temporary deductions which will be hereafter stated). 

If invention and improvement still go on, the efficiency 
of labor will be still further increased, and the amount of 
labor and capital necessary to produce a given result further 
diminished. The same causes will lead to the utilization of 
this new gain in productive power for the production of 
more wealth ; the margin of cultivation will be again extended, 
and rent will increase, both in proportion and amount, with- 
out any increase in wages and interest. And, so, as invention 
and improvement go on, constantly adding to the efficiency 
of labor, the margin of production v/ill be pushed lower and 
lower, and rent constantly increase, though population should 
remain stationary. 

I do not mean to say that the lowering of the margin of pro- 
duction v/ould always exactly correspond with the increase in 
productive power, any more than I mean to say that the process 
would be one of clearly defined steps. Whether, in any particu- 
lar case, the lowering of the margin of production lags 



i82 EFFECTS OF MA TERIAL PROGRESS. 

behind or exceeds the increase in productive power, will 
depend, I conceive, upon what may be called the area of pro- 
ductiveness that can be utilized before cultivation is forced 
to the next lowest point. For instance, if the margin of cul- 
tivation be at 20, improvements which enable the same pro- 
duce to be obtained with one-tenth less capital and labor will 
not carry the margin to 18, if the area having a productive- 
ness of 19 is sufficient to employ all the labor and capital dis- 
placed from the cultivation of the superior lands. In this case 
the margin of cultivation would rest at 19, and rents would 
be increased by the difference between 19 and 20, and wages 
and interest by the difference between 18 and 19. But if, 
with the same increase in productive power, the area of pro- 
ductiveness between 20 and 18 should not be sufficient to em- 
ploy all the displaced labor and capital, the margin of cultiva- 
tion must, if the same amount of labor and capital press for 
employment, be carried lower than 18. In this case, rent 
would gain more than the increase in the product, and wages 
and interest would be less than before the improvements 
which increased productive power. 

Nor is it precisely true that the labor set free by each 
improvement will all be driven to seek employment in the 
production of more wealth. The increased power of satis- 
faction, which each fresh improvement gives to a certain 
portion of the community, will be utilized in demanding 
leisure or services, as well as in demanding wealth. Some 
laborers will, therefore, become idlers and some will pass 
from the ranks of productive to those of unproductive 
laborers — the proportion of which, as observation shows, 
tends to increase with the progress of society. 

But, as I shall presently allude to a cause, as yet uncon- 
sidered, which constantly tends to lower the margin of 
cultivation, to steady the advance of rent, and even carry it 
beyond the proportion that would be fixed by the actual 
margin of cultivation, it is not worth while to take into 
account these perturbations in the downward movement of 
the margin of cultivation and the upward movement of rent. 
All I wish to make clear is that, without any increase in 
population, the progress of invention constantly tends to give 
a larger and larger proportion of the produce to the owners 
of land, and a smaller and smaller proportion to labor and 
capital. 

And, as we can assign no limits to the progress of inven- 
tion, neither can we assign any limits to the increase of rent. 



IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ARTS. 183 

short of the whole produce. For, if labor-saving inventions 
went on until perfection was attained, and the necessity of 
labor in the production of wealth was entirely done away 
with, then everything that the earth could yield could be 
obtained without labor, and the margin of cultivation would 
be extended to zero. Wages would be nothing, and interest 
would be nothing, while rent would take everything. For 
the owners of the land, being enabled without labor to 
obtain all the wealth that could be procured from nature, 
there would be no use for either labor or capital, and no 
possible way in which either could compel any share of the 
wealth produced. And no matter how small population 
might be, if any body but the land owners continued to 
exist, it would be at the whim or by the mercy of the land 
owners — they would be maintained either for the amusement 
of the land owners, or, as paupers, by their bounty. 

This point, of the absolute perfection of labor-saving 
inventions, may seem very remote, if not impossible of 
attainment ; but it is a point towards which the march of 
invention is every day more strongly tending. And in the 
thinning out of population in the agricultural districts of 
Great Britain, where small farms are being converted into 
larger ones, and in the great machine-worked wheat fields 
of California and Dakota, where one may ride for miles 
and miles through waving grain without seeing a human 
habitation, there are already suggestions of the final goal 
towards which the whole civilized world is hastening. The 
steam plow and the reaping machine are creating in the 
modern world latifundia of the same kind that the influx of 
slaves from foreign w^ars created in ancient Italy. And to 
many a poor fellow as he is shoved out of his accustomed 
place and forced to move on — as the Roman farmers were 
forced to join the proletariat of the great city, or sell their 
blood for bread in the ranks of the legions — it seems as 
though these labor-saving inventions were in themselves a 
curse, and we hear men talking of work, as though the 
wearying strain of the muscles were, in itself, a thing to be 
desired. 

In what has preceded, I have, of course, spoken of inven- 
tions and improvements when generally diffused. It is 
hardly necessary to say that as long as an invention or an 
improvement is used by so few that they derive a special 
advantage from it, it does not, to the extent of this special 
advantage, affect the general distribution of wealth. So, m 



iS4 EFFECTS OF MA TERIAL PROGRESS. 

regard to the limited monopolies created by patent laws, oi 
by the causes which give the same character to railroad and 
telegraph lines, etc. Although generally mistaken for profits 
of capital, the special profits thus arising are really the 
returns of monopoly, as has been explained in a previous 
chapter, and, to the extent which they subtract from the 
benefits of an improvement, do not primarily affect general 
distribution. For instance, the benefits of a railroad or 
similar improvement in cheapening transportation are dif- 
fused or monopolized, as its charges are reduced to a rate 
which will yield ordinary interest on the capital invested, or 
kept up to a point which will yield an extraordinary return, 
or cover the stealing of the constructors or directors. And, 
as is well known, the rise in rent or land values corresponds 
with the reduction in the charges. 

As has been before said, in the improvements which 
advance rent, are not only to be included the improvements 
which directly increase productive power, but also such 
improvements in government, manners, and morals as indi- 
rectly increase it. Considered as material forces, the effect 
of all these is to increase productive power, and, like improve- 
ments in the productive arts, their benefit is ultimately 
monopolized by the possessors of the land. A notable instance 
of this is to be found in the abolition of protection by 
England. Free trade has enormously increased the wealth of 
Great Britain, without lessening pauperism. It has simply 
increased rent. And if the corrupt governments of our 
great American cities were to be made models of purity and 
economy, the effect would simply be to increase the value of 
real estate, not to raise either wages or interest. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EFFECT OF THE EXPECTATION RAISED BY MATERIAL PROGRESS. 

We have now seen that while advancing population tends 
to advance rent, so all the causes that in a progressive state 
of society operate to increase the productive power of labor, 
tend, also, to advance rent, and not to advance wages or 
interest. The increased production of wealth goes ultimately 
to the owners of land in increased rent ; and, although, as 
improvement goes on, advantages may accrue to individuals 



EXPECTATION RAISED BY MATERIAL PROGRESS. 185 

not land holders, which concentrate m their hands considerable 
portions of the increased produce, yet there is in all this 
improvement nothing which tends to increase the general 
return, either to labor or to capital. 

But there is a, cause, not yet adverted to, which must be 
taken into consideration to fully explain the influence of 
material progress upon the distribution of wealth. 

That cause is the confident expectation of the future 
enhancement of land values, which arises in all progressive 
countries from the steady increase of rent, and which leads 
to speculation, or the holding of land for a higher price than 
it would then otherwise bring. 

We have hitherto assumed, as is generally assumed in 
elucidations of the theory of rent, that the actual margin 
of cultivation always coincides with what may be termed the 
necessary margin of cultivation — that is to say, we have 
assumed that cultivation extends to less productive points 
only as it becomes necessary from the fact that natural 
opportunities are at the more productive points fully utilized. 

This, probably, is the case in stationary or very slowly 
progressing communities, but in rapidly progressing com- 
munities, where the swift and steady increase of rent gives 
confidence to calculations of further increase, it is not thfe 
case. In such communities, the confident expectation of 
increased prices produces, to a greater or less extent, the 
effects ot a combination among land holders, and tends to 
the withholding of land from use, in expectation of higher 
prices, thus forcing the margin of cultivation farther than 
required by the necessities of production. 

This cause must operate to some extent in all progressive 
communities, though in such countries as England, where the 
tenant system prevails in agriculture, it may be shown more in 
the selling price of land than in the agricultural margin of 
cultivation, or actual rent. But in communities like the 
United States, where the user of land generally prefers, if he 
can, to own it, and where there is a great extent of land to 
overrun, it operates with enormous power. 

The immense area over which the population of the United 
States is scattered shows this. The man who sets out from 
the Eastern seaboard in search of the margin of cultivation, 
where he may obtain land without paying rent, must, like the 
man who swam the river to get a drink, pass for long dis- 
tances through half-tilled farms, and traverse vast areas of 
virgin soil, before he reaches the point where land can be had 



1 86 EFFECTS OF MATERIAL PROGRESS. 

free of rent — /. ^., by homestead entry or pre-emption. He 
(and, with him, the margin of cuhivation) is forced so much 
farther than he otherwise need have gone, by the speculation 
which is holding these unused lands in expectation of increased 
value in the future. And when he settles, he will, in his turn, 
take up, if he can, more land than he can use, in the belief 
that it will soon become valuable ; and so those who follow 
him are again forced farther on than the necessities of pro- 
duction require, carrying the margin of cultivation to still less 
productive, because still more remote points. 

The same thing may be seen in every rapidly growing city. 
If the land of superior quality as to location were always 
fully used before land of inferior quality were resorted to, no 
vacant lots would be left as a city extended, nor would we 
find miserable shanties in the midst of costly buildings. 
These lots, some of them extremely valuable, are withheld 
from use, or from the full use to which they might be put, be- 
cause their owners, not being able or not wishing to improve 
them, prefer, in expectation of the advance of land values, 
to hold them for a higher rate than could now be obtained 
from those vv'illing to improve them. And, in consequence 
of this land being withheld from use, or from the full use of 
which it is capable, the margin of the city is pushed away so 
much farther from the centre. 

But when we reach the limits of the growing city — the ac- 
tual margin of building, which corresponds to the margin of 
cultivation in agriculture — we shall not find the land pur- 
chasable at its value for agricultural purposes, as it would 
be were rent determined simply by present requirements : 
but we shall find that for a long distance beyond the city, 
land bears a speculative value, based upon the belief that it 
will be required in the future for urban purposes, and that to 
reach the point at which land can be purchased at a price not 
based upon urban rent, we must go very far beyond the 
actual margin of urban use. 

Or, to take another case of a different kind, instances 
similar to which may doubtless be found in every locahty. 
There is in Marin County, within easy access of San Fran- 
cisco, a fine belt of redwood timber. Naturally, this would 
be first used, before resorting for the supply of the San Fran- 
cisco market to timber lands at a much greater distance. 
But it yet remains uncut, and lumber procured many miles 
beyond is daily hauled past it on the railroad, because its 
owner prefers to hold for the greater price it will bring in the 



EXPECTA TION RAISED B V MA TERIAL PROGRESS. 187 

future. Thus, by the withholding from use of this body of 
timber, the margin of production of redwood is forced so 
much farther up and down the Coast Range. That mineral 
land, when reduced to private ownership, is frequently with- 
held from use while poorer deposits are worked, is well known, 
and in new states it is common to find individuals who are 
called "land poor" — that is, who remain poor, sometimes 
almost to deprivation, because they insist on holding land, 
which they themselves cannot use, at prices at which no one 
else can profitably use it. 

To recur now to the illustration we made use of in the 
preceding chapter : With the margin of cultivation stand- 
ing at 20, an increase in the power of production takes place, 
which renders the same result obtainable with one-tenth less 
labor. For reasons before stated, the margin of production 
must now be forced down, and if it rests at 18, the return to 
labor and capital will be the same as before, when the margin 
stood at 20. Whether it will be forced to 18 or be forced 
lower depends upon what I have called the area of productive- 
ness which intervenes between 20 and 18. But if the confi- 
dent expectation of a further increase of rents leads the land 
owners to demand 3 rent for 20 land, 2 for 19, and i for 18 
land, and to withhold their land from use until these terms 
are complied with, the area of productiveness may be so 
reduced that the margin of cultivation must fall to 17 or even 
iower ; and thus, as the result of the increase in the efficiency 
of labor, laborers would get less than before, while interest 
would be proportionately reduced, and rent would increase in 
greater ratio than the increase in productive power. 

Whether we formulate it as an extension of the margin 
of production, or as a carrying of the rent line beyond the 
margin of production, the influence of speculation in land in 
increasing rent is a great fact which cannot be ignored in any 
complete theory of the distribution of wealth in progressive 
countries. It is the force, evolved by material progress, which 
tends constantly to increase rent in a greater ratio than progress 
increases production, and thus constantly tends, as material 
progress goes on and productive power increases, to reduce 
wages, not merely relatively, but absolutely It is this expan- 
sive force which, operating with great power in new countries, 
brings to them, seemingly long before their time, the social 
diseases of older countries ; produces " tramps " on virgin 
acres, and breeds paupers on half-tilled soil. 

In short, the general and steady advance in land values in a 



i88 EFFECTS OF MA FERIAL PROGRESS. 

progressive community necessarily produces that additional 
tendency to advance which is seen in the case of commodities 
when any general and continuous cause operates to increase 
their price. As, during the rapid depreciation of currency 
which marked the latter days of the Southern Confederacy, 
the fact that whatever was bought one day could be sold for 
a higher price the next, operated to carry up the prices of 
commodities even faster than the depreciation of the currenc)^, 
so does the steady increase of land values, which material 
progress produces, operate to still further accelerate the 
increase. We see this secondary cause operating in full 
force in those manias of land speculation which mark the 
growth of new communities; but though these are the 
abnormal and occasional manifestations, it is undeniable that 
the cause steadily operates, with greater or less intensity, in 
all progressive societies. 

The cause which limits speculation in commodities, the 
tendency of increasing price to draw forth additional supplies, 
cannot limit the speculative advance in land values, as land 
is a fixed quantity, which human agency can neither increase 
nor diminish ; but there is nevertheless a limit to the price 
of land, in the minimum required by labor and capital as the 
condition of engaging in production. If it were possible to 
continuously reduce wages until zero were reached, it would 
be possible to continuously increase rent until it swallowed 
up the whole produce. But as wages cannot be permanently 
reduced below the point at which laborers will consent to 
work and reproduce, nor interest below the point at which 
capital will be devoted to production, there is a limit which 
restrains the speculative advance of rent. Hence, specu- 
lation cannot have the same scope to advance rent in coun- 
tries where wages and interest are already near the minimum, 
as in countries where they are considerably above it. Yet 
that there is in all progressive countries a constant tendency 
in the speculative advance of rent to overpass the limit where 
production would cease, is, I think, shown by recurring 
seasons of industrial paralysis — a matter which will be more 
fully examined in the next book. 



BOOK V. 

THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



To whomsoever the soil at any time belongs, to him belongs the fruits of it. 
White parasols, and elephants mad with pride are the flowers of a grant of land.— 
Sir Wnt. Jones' translation of an Indian grant of land^ found at Tan»a, 



The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner ; a perfumed seigneur, 
delicately lounging in the CEil de Boeuf , hath an alchemy whereby he will extract 
from her the third nettle, and call it rent. — Carlyle. 



CHAPTER 1. 

THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF RECURRING PAROXYSMS OF INDUSTRIAL 

DEPRESSION. 

Our long inquiry is ended. We may now marshal the 

results. 

To begin with the industrial depressions, to account for 
which so many contradictory and self-contradictory theories 
are broached. 

A consideration of the manner in which the speculative 
advance in land values cuts down the earnings of labor and 
i^apital and checks production, leads, I think, irresistibly to 
the conclusion that this is the main cause of those periodica] 
industrial depressions to which every civilized country, and 
all civilized countries together, seem increasingly liable. 

I do not mean to say that there are not other proximate 
causes. The growing complexity and interdependence of 
the machinery of production, which makes each shock or 
stoppage propagate itself through a widening circle ; the 
essential defect of currencies which contract when most 
needed, and the tremendous alternations in volume that 
occur in the simpler forms of commercial credit, which, to a 
much greater extent than currency in any form, constitute 
the medium or flux of exchanges; the protective tariffs 
which present artificial barriers to the interplay of productive 
forces, and other similar causes, undoubtedly bear important 



igo THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 

part in producing and continuing what are called hard times. 
But, both from the consideration of principles and the 
observation of phenomena, it is clear that the great initiatory 
cause is to be looked for in the speculative advance of land 
values. 

In the preceding chapter I have shown that the speculative 
advance in land values tend to press the margin of cultiva- 
jtion, or production, beyond its normal limit, thus compelling 
labor and capital to accept of a smaller return, or (and this 
is the only way they can resist the tendency) to cease pro- 
duction. Now, it is not only natural that labor and capital 
should resist the crowding down of wages and interest by 
the speculative advance of rent, but they are driven to this 
in self-defense, inasmuch as there is a minimum of return 
below which labor cannot exist nor capital be maintained. 
Hence, from the fact of speculation in land, we may infer all 
the phenomena which mark these recurring seasons of 
industrial depression. 

Given a progressive community, in which population is 
increasing and one improvement succeeds another, and land 
must constantly increase in value. This steady increase 
naturally leads to speculation in which future increase is 
anticipated, and land values are carried beyond the point at 
which, under the existing conditions of production, their 
accustomed returns would be left to labor and capital. 
Production, therefore, begins to stop. Not that there is 
necessarily, or even probably, an absolute diminution in 
production ; but that there is what in a progressive commu- 
nity would be equivalent to an absolute diminution of pro- 
duction in a stationary community — a failure in production 
to increase proportionately, owing to the failure of new 
increments of labor and capital to find employment at the 
accustomed rates. 

This stoppage of production at some points must neces- 
sarily show itself at other points of the industrial network, 
in a cessation of demand, which would again check produc- 
tion there, and thus, the paralysis would communicate itself 
through all the interlacings of industry and commerce, 
producing everywhere a partial disjointing of production and 
exchange, and resulting in the phenomena that seem to show 
over-production or over-consumption, according to the stand- 
point from which they are viewed. 

The period of depression thus ensuing would continue 
until (i) the speculative advance in rents had been lost ; or 



CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSIONS. 191 

(2) the increase in the efficiency of labor owing to the 
growth of population^ and the progress of improvement, 
had enabled the normal rent line to overtake the speculative 
rent line ; or (3) labor and capital had become reconciled to 
engaging in production for smaller returns. Or, most prob- 
ably, all three of these causes would co-operate to produce a 
new equilibrium, at which all the forces of production would 
again engage, and a season of activity ensue ; whereupon 
rent would begin to advance again, a speculative advance 
again take place, production be again checked, and the same 
round be gone over. 

In the elaborate and complicated system of production 
which is characteristic of modern civilization, where, moreover, 
there is no such thing as a distinct and independent industrial 
community, but geographically or politically separated com- 
munities blend and interlace their industrial organizations in 
different modes and varying measures, it is not to be expected 
that effect should be seen to follow cause as clearly and 
definitely as would be the case in a simpler development of 
industry, and in a community forming a complete and distinct 
industrial whole ; but, nevertheless, the phenomena actually 
presented by these alternate seasons of activity and depression 
clearly correspond with those we have inferred from the spec- 
ulative advance of rent. 

Deduction thus shows the actual phenomena as resulting 
from the principle. If we reverse the process, it is as easy by 
induction to reach the principle by tracing up the phe- 
nomena. 

These seasons of depression are always preceded by sea- 
sons of activity and speculation, and on all hands the connec- 
tion between the two is admitted — the depression being looked 
upon as the reaction from the speculation, as the headache of 
the morning is the reaction from the debauch of the night. 
But as to the manner in which the depression results from 
the speculation, there are two classes or schools of opinion, 
as the attempts made on both sides of the Atlantic to ac- 
count for the present industrial depression will show. 

One school says that the speculation produced the depres- 
sion by causing over-production, and point to the ware- 
houses filled with goods that cannot be sold at remunerative 
prices, to mills closed or working on half time, to mines shut 
down and steamers laid up, to money lying idly in bank 
vaults, and workmen compelled to idleness and privation. 
They point to those facts as showing that the productions 



192 THE PROBLEM SOL VED. 

has exceeded the demand for consumption, and they point, 
moreover, to tlie fact that when government during war 
enters the field as an enormous consumer, brisk times prevail, 
as in the United vStates during the civil war and in England 
during the Napoleonic struggle. 

The other school says that the speculation has produced 
the depression by leading to over-consumption, and point to 
full warehouses, rusting steamers, closed mills, and idle work- 
men as evidences of a cessation of effective demand, which, 
they say, evidently results from the fact that people, made ex- 
travagant by a fictitious prosperity, have lived beyond their 
means, and are now obliged to retrench — that is, to consume 
less wealth. They point, moreover, to the enormous con- 
sumption of wealth by wars, by the building of unremunerative 
railroads, by loans to bankrupt governments, etc., as extrava- 
gances which, though not felt at the time, just as the spend- 
thrift does not at the moment feel the impairment of his 
fortune, must now be made up by a season of reduced 
consumption. 

Now, each of these theories evidently expresses one side 
or phase of a general truth, but each of them evidently fails 
to comprehend the full truth. As an explanation of the 
phenomena, each is equally and utterly preposterous. 

For while the great masses of men want more wealth than 
they can get, and while they are willing to give for it that 
which is the basis and raw material of wealth — their labor — 
how can there be over-production ? And while the ma- 
chinery of production wastes and producers are condemned 
to unwilling idleness, how can there be over-consumption ? 

When, with the desire to consume more, there co-exist the 
ability and willingness to ^produce more, industrial and 
commercial paralysis cannot be charged either to over-pro- 
duction or to over-consumption. Manifestly, the trouble is 
that production and consumption cannot meet and satisfy 
each other. 

How does this inability arise ? It is evidently and by com- 
mon consent the result of speculation. But of speculation 
in what ? 

Certainly not of speculation in things which are the pro- 
ducts of labor — in agricultural or mineral productions, or 
manufactured goods, for the effect of speculation in such 
things, as is well shown in current treatises that spare me the 
necessity of illustration, is simply to equalize supply and de^ 
mand, and to steady the interplay of production and con- 



CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSIONS. 193 

sumption by an action analogous to that of a fly-wheel in a 
machine. 

Therefore, if speculation be the cause of these industrial 
depressions, it must be speculation in things not the produc- 
tion of labor, but yet necessary to the exertion of labor in 
the production of wealth — of things of fixed quantity; that 
is to say, it must be speculation in land. 

That land speculation is the true cause of industrial de- 
pression is, in the United States, clearly evident. In each 
period of industrial activity land values have steadily risen, 
culminating in speculation which carried them up in great 
jumps. This has been invariably followed by a partial cessa- 
tion of production, and its correlative, a cessation of effective 
demand (dull trade), generally accompanied by a commer- 
cial crash ; and then has succeeded a period of comparative 
stagnation, during which the equilibrium has been again 
slowly established, and the same round been run again. This 
relation is observable throughout the civilized world. Peri- 
ods of industrial activity always culminate in a speculative 
advance of land values, followed by symptoms of checked 
production, generally shown at first by cessation of demand 
from the newer countries,- where the advance in land values 
has been greatest. 

That this must be the main explanation of these periods of 
depression, will be seen by an analysis of the facts. 

All trade, let it be remembered, is the exchange of com- 
modities for commodities, and hence the cessation of demand 
for some commodities, which marks the depression of trade, 
is really a cessation in the supply of other commodities. 
That dealers find their sales declining and manufacturers 
find orders falling off, while the things which they have to 
sell, or stand ready to make, are things for which there is yet 
a wide spread desire,^ simply shows that the supply of other 
things, which in the course of trade would be given for them, 
has declined. In common parlance we say that "buyers 
have no money," or that " money is becoming scarce," but in 
talking in this way w^e ignore the fact that money is but the 
medium of exchange. What the would-be buyers really lack 
is not money, but commodities which they can turn into 
mioney — what is really becoming scarcer, is produce of some 
sort. The diminution of ihe effective demand of consum- 
ers is therefore but a result of the diminution of production. 

This is seen very clearly by storekeepers in a manufactur- 
ing town when the mills are shut down and operatives throwiv 

13 



194 THE PROBLEM SOL FED. 

out of work. It is the cessation of production whicfi de- 
prives the operatives of means to make the purchases they 
desire, and thus leaves the storekeeper with what, in view of 
the lessened demand, is a superabundant stock, and forces 
him to discharge some of his clerks and otherwise reduce his 
demands. And the cessation of demand (I am speaking, of 
course, of general cases and not of any alteration in relative 
demand from such causes as change of fashion), which has 
left the manufacturer with superabundant stock and com- 
pelled him to discharge his hands, must arise in the same 
way. Somewhere (it may be at the other end of the world) 
a check in production has produced a check in the demand 
for consumption. That demand is lessened without want be- 
ing satisfied, shows that production is somewhere checked. 

People want the things the manufacturer makes as much 
as ever, just as the operatives want the things the storekeeper 
has to sell. But they do not have as much to give for them. 
Production has somewhere been checked, and this reduction 
in the supply of some things has shown itself in cessation of 
demand for others, the check propagating itself through the 
whole framework of industry and exchange. Now, the in- 
dustrial pyramid manifestly rests on the land. The primary 
and fundamental occupations, which create a demand for all 
others, are evidently those which extract wealth from nature, 
and, hence, if we trace from one exchange point to another, 
and from one occupation to another, this check to production, 
which shows itself in decreased purchasing power, we must 
ultimately find it in some obstacle which checks labor in ex- 
pending itself on land. And that obstacle, it is clear, is the 
speculative advance in rent, or the value of land, which pro- 
duces the same effects as (in fact, it is) a lock-out of labor 
and capital by land owners. This check to production, be- 
ginning at the basis of interlaced industry, propagates itself 
from exchange point to exchange point, cessation of supply 
becoming failure of demand, until, so to speak, the whole 
machine is thrown out of gear, and the spectacle is every- 
where presented of labor going to waste while laborers suffer 
from want. 

This strange and unnatural spectacle of large numbers of 
willing men who cannot find employment, is enough to 
suggest the true cause to whoever can think consecutively. 
For, though custom has dulled us to it, it is a strange and 
unnatural thing that men who wish to labor, in order to 
satisfy their wants, cannot find the opportunity — as, sine* 



CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSIONS. 195 

labor is that which produces wealth, the man who seeks to 
exchange labor for food, clothing, or any other form of v/ealth, 
is like one who proposes to give bullion for coin, or wheat 
for flour. We talk about the supply of labor, and the demand 
for labor, but, evidently, these are only relative terms. The 
supply of labor is everywhere the same — two hands always 
come into the world with one mouth, twenty-one boys to 
every twenty girls ; and the demand for labor must always 
exist as long as men want things which labor alone can pro- 
cure. We talk about the " want of work," but, evidently it 
is not work that is short while want continues ; evidently, 
the supply of labor cannot be too great, nor the demand for 
labor too small, when people suffer for the lack of things that 
labor produces. The real trouble must be that supply is 
somehow prevented from satisfying demand, that somewhere 
there is an obstacle which prevents labor from producing the 
things that laborers w^ant. 

Take the case of any one of these vast masses of unem- 
ployed men, to whom, though he never heard of Malthus, 
it to-day seems that there are too many people in the world. 
In his own wants, in the needs of his anxious wife, in the 
demands for his half cared for, perhaps even hungry and 
shivering children, there is demand enough for labor. Heaven 
knows ! In his own . veiling hands is the supply. Put him on 
a solitary island, and though cut off from all the enormous 
advantages which the co-operation, combination, and machin- 
ery of a civilized community give to the productive powers of 
man, yet his two hands can fill the mouths and keep warm 
the backs that depend upon them. Yet where productive 
power is at its highest development, he cannot. Why ? Is 
it not because in the one case he has access to the material 
and forces of nature, and in the other this access is denied ? 

Is it not the fact that labor is thus shut off from nature 
which can alone explain the state of things that compels men 
to stand idle who would willingly supply their wants by their 
labor ? The proximate cause of enforced idleness with one 
set of men may be the cessation of demand on the part of 
other men for the particular things they produce, but trace 
this cause from point to point, from occupation to occupation, 
and you will find that enforced idleness in one trade is caused 
by enforced idleness in another, and that the paralysis which 
produces dullness in all trades cannot be said to spring from 
too great a supply of labor or too small a demand for labor, 
but must proceed from the fact that supply cannot meet 



196 THE PROBLEM SOL VED. 

demand by producing the things which satisfy want and are 
the object of labor. 

Now, what is necessary to enable labor to produce these 
things, is land. When we speak of labor creating w^ealth, we 
speak metaphorically. Man creates nothing. The whole 
human race, were they to labor forever, could not create the 
tiniest mote that floats in a sunbeam — could not make this 
rolling sphere one atom heavier or one atom lighter. In pro- 
ducing wealth, labor, with the aid of natural forces, but works 
up, into the forms desired, pre-existing matter, and, to pro- 
duce wealth, must, therefore, have access to this matter and 
to these forces — that is to say, to land. The l^nd is the 
source of all wealth. It is the mine from which must be 
drawn the ore that labor fashions. It is the substance to 
which labor gives the form. And, hence, when labor cannot 
satisfy its wants, may we not with certainty infer that it can 
be from no other cause than that labor is denied access to 
land ? 

When in all trades there is what we call scarcity of employ 
ment ; when, everywhere, labor wastes, while desire is unsat- 
isfied, must not the obstacle which prevents labor from pro- 
ducing the wealth it needs, lie at the foundation of the indus- 
trial structure ? That foundation is land. Milliners, optical 
instrument makers, gilders, and polishers, are not the pioneers 
of new settlements. Miners did not go to California or Aus- 
tralia because shoemakers, tailors, machinists, and printers 
were there. But those trades followed the miners, just as 
they are now following the gold diggers into the Black Hills 
and the diamond diggers into South Africa. It is not the 
storekeeper who is the cause of the farmer, but the farmer 
who brings the storekeeper. It is not the growth of the city 
that develops the country, but the development of the coun- 
try that makes the city grow. And, hence, when, through all 
trades, men willing to work cannot find opprtunity to do so, 
the difficulty must arise in the employment that creates a 
demand for all other employments — it must be because labor 
is shut out from land. 

In Leeds or Lowell, in Philadelphia or Manchester, in 
London or New York, it may require a grasp of first princi- 
ples to see this ; but where industrial development has not 
become so elaborate, nor the extreme links of the chain so 
widely separated, one has but to look at obvious facts. 
Although not yet thirty years old, the city of San Francisco, 
both in population and in commercial importance, ranks 



CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSIONS. 197 

among the great cities of the world, and, next to New York, 
is the most metropoUtan of American cities. Though not yet 
thirty years old, she has had for some years an increasing 
number of unemployed men. Clearly, here, it is because 
men cannot find employment in the country that there are so 
many unemployed in the city ; for when the harvest opens 
they go trooping out and when it is over they come trooping 
back to the city again. If these now unemployed men were 
producing wealth from the land, they w^ould not only be 
employing themselves, but would be employing all the 
mechanics of the city, giving custom to the storekeepers, 
trade to the merchants, audiences to the theatres, and sub- 
scribers and advertisements to the newspapers — creating 
effective demand that would be felt in New England and Old 
England, and wherever throughout the world come the arti- 
cles that, when they have the means to pay for them, such a 
population consumes. 

Now, why is it that this unemployed labor cannot employ 
itself upon the land t Not that the land is all in use. . Though 
all the symptoms that in older countries are taken as showing 
a redundancy oc population are beginning to manifest them- 
selves in San Francisco, it is idle to talk of redundancy of 
population in a State that with greater natural resources than 
France has not yet a million of people. Within a few miles 
of San Francisco is unused land enough to give employment 
to every man who wants it. I do not mean to say that every 
unemployed man could turn farmer or build himself a house, 
if he had the land ; but that enough could and would do so 
to give employment to the rest. What is it, then, that 
prevents labor from employing itself on this land ? Simply, 
that it has been monopolized and is held at speculative prices, 
based not upon present value, but upon the added value that 
will come with the future growth of population. 

What may thus be seen in San Francisco by whoever is 
willing to see, may, I doubt not, be seen as clearly in other 
places. 

The present commercial and industrial depression, which 
first clearly manifested itself in the United States in 1872, 
and has spread with greater or less intensity over the civil- 
izecj world, is largely attributed to the undue extension of 
the railroad system, with which there are many things that 
seem to show a relation. I am fully conscious that the con- 
struction of railroads before they are actually needed may 
divert capital and labor from more to less productive employ- 



198 THE PROBLEM SOL VED. 

ments, and make a community poorer instead of richer ; and 
when the railroad mania was at its highest, I pointed this out 
in a political tract addressed to the people of California (The 
Subsidy Question and the Democratic Party, 187 1); but to 
assign to this wasting (3f capital such a wide-spread industrial 
dead-lock seems to me like attributing an unusually low tide 
to the drawing of a few extra bucketfuls of water. The waste 
of capital and labor during the civil war was enormously 
greater than it could possibly be by the construction of 
unnecessary railroads, but without producing any such result. 
And, certainly, there seems to be little sense in talking of the 
waste of capital and labor in railroads as causing this depres- 
sion, when the prominent feature of the depression has been 
the superabundance of capital and labor seeking employment. 

Yet, that there is a connection between the rapid construc- 
tion of railroads and industrial depression, any one who 
understands what increased land values mean, and who has 
noticed the effect which the construction of railroads has upon 
land speculation, can easily see. Wherever a railroad was 
built or projected, lands sprang up in value under the influ- 
ence of speculation, and thousands of millions of dollars were 
added to the nominal values which capital and labor were 
asked to pay outright, or to pay in installments, as the price 
of being allowed to go to work and produce wealth. The 
inevitable result was to check production, and this check to 
production propagated itself in a cessation of demand, which 
checked production to the furthest verge of the wide circle 
of exchanges, operating with accumulated force in the centres 
of the great industrial commonwealth into which commerce 
links the civilized \vorld. 

The primary operations of this cause can, perhaps, be 
nowhere more clearly traced than in California, which, from its 
comparative isolation, has constituted a peculiarly well defined 
community. 

Until almost its close, the last decade was marked in 
California by the same industrial activity which was shown 
in the Northern States, and, in fact, throughout the civilized 
world, when the interruption of exchanges and the disarrange- 
ment of industry caused by the war and the blockade of 
Southern ports, is considered. This activity could not be 
attributed to inflation of the currency or to lavish expendittires 
of the General Government, to which in the Eastern States 
the comparative activity of the same period has since been 
attributed; for, in spite of legal tender laws, the Pacific Coast 



CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSIONS-. 199 

adhered to a coin currency, and the taxation of the Federal 
Government took away very much more than was returned in 
Federal expenditures. It was attributable solely to normal 
causes, for, though placer mining was declining, the Nevada 
silver mines were being opened, wheat and wool were begin- 
ning to take the place of gold in the table of exports, and an 
increasing population and the improvement in the methods of 
production and exchange were steadily adding to the efficiency 
of labor. 

With this material progress went on a steady enhancement 
in land values — its consequence. This steady advance engen- 
dered a speculative advance, which, witli the railroad era, ran 
up land values in every direction. If the population of 
California had steadily grown when the long, costly, fever- 
haunted Isthmus route was the principal mode of communica- 
tion with the Atlantic States, it must, it was thought, increase 
enormously with the opening of a road which would bring 
New York harbor and San Francisco bay within seven days' 
easy travel, and when in the State itself the locomotive took 
the place of stage coach and freight wagon. The expected 
increase of land values which would thus accrue was dis- 
counted in advance. Lots on the outskirts of San Francisco 
rose hundreds and thousands per cent, and farming land was 
taken up and held for high prices, in whichever direction an 
immigrant was likely to go. 

But the anticipated rush of immigrants did not take place. 
Labor and capital could not pay so much for land and make 
fair returns. Production was checked, if not absolutely, at 
least relatively. As the transcontinental railroad approached 
completion, instead of increased activity symptoms of depress 
sion began to manifest themselves ; and, when it was com- 
pleted, to the season of activity had succeeded a period of 
depression which has not since been fully recovered from, 
during which wages and interest have steadily fallen. What 
I have called the actual rent line, or margin of cultivation, is 
thus (as well as by the steady march of improvement and 
increase of pojDulation, which, though slower than it other- 
wise would have been, still goes on) approaching the specu- 
lative rent line, but the tenacity with which a speculative 
advance in the price of land is maintained in a developing 
community is well known.* 

* Tt is astonishing how in a new country of great expectations speculative prices 
of land will be kept up. It is common to hear the expression, " There is no market 
for real estate ; you cannot sell it at any price," and yet, at the same time, if you go 



200 THE PROBLEM SOL VED. 

Now, what thus went on in California went on in ever^ 
progressive section of the Union. Everywhere that a rail- 
road was built or projected, land was monopolized in anticipa- 
tion, and the benefit of the improvement was discounted in 
increased land values. The speculative advance in rent 
thus outrunning the normal advance, production was checked, 
demand was decreased, and labor and capital were turned 
back from occupations more directly concerned with land, to 
glut those in which the value of land is a less perceptible 
element. It is thus that the rapid extension of railroads is 
related to the succeeding depression. 

And what went on in the United States went on in a 
greater or less obvious degree all over the progressive world. 
Everywhere land values have been steadily increasing with 
material progress, and everywhere this increase begot a specu- 
lative advance. The impulse of the primary cause not only 
radiated from the newer sections of the Union to the older 
sections, and from the United States to Europe, but every- 
where the primary cause was acting. And, hence, a world-wide 
depression of industry and commerce begotten of a world- 
wide material progress. 

There is one thing which, it may seem, I have overlooked, 
in attributing these industrial depressions to the speculative 
advance of rent or land values as a main and primary cause. 
The operation of such a cause, though it may be rapid, must 
be progressive — resembling a pressure, not a blow. But 
these industrial depressions seem to come suddenly — they 
have, at their beginning, the character of a paroxysm, followed 
by a comparative lethargy, as if of exhaustion. Every- 
thing seems to be going on as usual, commerce and industry 
vigorous and expanding, when suddenly there comes a shock, 
as of a thunderbolt out of a clear sky — a bank breaks, a 
great manufacturer or merchant fails, and, as if a blow had 
thrilled through the entire industrial organization, failure suc- 
ceeds failure, and on every side workmen are discharged 
from employment, and capital shrinks into profitless security. 

Let me explain what I think to be the reason of this : To 
do so, we must take into account the manner in which ex- 
changes are made, for it is by exchanges that all the varied 
xorms of industry are linked together into one mutually related 
and interdependent organization. To enable exchanges 

to buy it, unless you find somebody who is absolutely compelled to sell, you must 
pay the prices that prevailed when speculation ran high. For owners, believing 
that land values must ultimately advance, hold on as long as they can. 



CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSIONS. 201 

to be made between producers far removed by space and time, 
large stocks must be kept in store and in transit, and this, as 
I have already explained, I take to be the great function dt 
capital, in addition to that of supplying tools and seed. 
These exchanges are, perhaps necessarily, largely made 
upon credit — that is to say, the advance upon one side is 
made before the return is received on the other. 

Now, without stopping to inquire as to the causes, it is man- 
ifest that these advances are, as a rule, from the more highly 
organized and later developed industries to the more funda- 
mental. The West Coast African, for instance, who exchanges 
palm oil and cocoanuts for gaudy calico and Birmingham 
idols gets his return immediately ; the English merchant, on 
the contrary, has to lay out of his goods a longvv^hile before he 
gets his returns. The farmer can sell his crop as soon as it is 
harvested and for cash ; the great manufacturer must keep a large 
stock, send his goods long distances to agents, and, generally, 
sell on time. Thus, as advances and credits are generally from 
what we may call the secondary, to what we may call the pri- 
mary industries, it follows that any check to production which 
prceeds from the latter, will not immediately manifest itself 
in the former. The system of advances and credits constitutes, 
as it were, an elastic connection, which will give considerably 
before breaking, but which, when it breaks, will break with a 
snap. 

Or, to illustrate in another way what I mean : The great 
pyramid of Gizeh is composed of layers of masonry, the bot- 
tom layer, of course, supporting all the rest. Could we by 
some means gradually contract this bottom layer, the upper 
part of the pyramid would for some time retain its form, and 
then, when gravitation at length overcame the adhesiveness 
of the material, would not diminish gradually and regularly, 
but would break off suddenly, in large pieces. Now, the indus- 
trial organization may be likened to such a pyramid. What 
is the proportion which in a given stage of social develop- 
ment the various industries bear to each other, it is difficult, 
and perhaps impossible, to say ; but it is obvious that there is 
such a proportion, just as in a printer's font of type there is 
a certain proportion between the various letters. Each form 
of industry, as it is developed by division of labor, springs from 
and rises out of the others, and all rest ultimately upon 
land; for, without land, labor is as impotent as would be a 
man in void space. To make the illustration closer to the 
condition of a progressive country, imagine a pyramid composed 



202 THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 

of superimposed layers — the whole constantly growing and 
expanding. Imagine the growth of the layer nearest the 
ground to be checked. The others will for a time keep on ex- 
panding — in fact, for the moment, the tendency will be to 
quicker expansion, for the vital force v/hich is refused scope 
on the ground layer will strive to find vent in those above — 
until, at length there is a decided overbalance and a sudden 
crumbling along all the faces of the pyramid. 

That the main cause and general course of the recurring 
paroxysms of industrial depression, which are becoming so 
marked a feature of modern social life, are thus explained, 
is, I think, clear. And let the reader remember that it is only 
the main causes and general courses of such phenomena that 
we are seeking to trace or that, in fact, it is possible to trace 
with any exactness. Political economy can only deal, and 
has only need to deal, with general tendencies. The deriva- 
tive forces are so multiform, the actions and reactions are 
so various^ that the exact character of the phenomena cannot 
be predicted. We know that if a tree is cut through it will 
fall, but precisely in what direction will be determined by the 
inclination of the trunk, the spread of the branches, the impact 
of the blows, the quarter and force of the wind ; and even a 
bird lighting on a twig, or a frightened squirrel leaping frona 
bough to bough, will not be without its influence. We know 
that an insult will arouse a feeling of resentment in the human 
breast, but to say how far and in what way it will manifest 
itself, would require a synthesis which would build up the en- 
tire man and all his surroundings, past and present. 

The manner in which the sufficient cause to which I have 
traced them explains the main features of these industrial de- 
pressions, is in striking contrast with the contradictory and 
self-contradictory attempts which have been made to explain 
them on the current theories of the distribution of wealth. 
That a speculative advance in rent or land values invariably 
precedes each of these seasons of industrial depression is 
everywhere clear. That they bear to each other the relation 
of cause and effect, is obvious to whoever considers the neces- 
sary relation between land and labor. 

And that the present depression is running its course, and 
that, in the manner previously indicated, a new equilibrium is 
being established, which will result in another season of com^. 
parative activity, may already be seen in the United States. 
The normal rent line and the speculative rent line are being 
brought together : (i) By the fall in speculative land values. 



THE PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY. 203 

which is very evident in the reduction of rents and shrinkage 
of real estate values in the principal cities. (2) By the 
increased efficiency of labor, arising from the growth of pop- 
ulation and the utiUzation of new inventions and discoveries, 
some of which almost as important as that of the use of 
steam we seem to be on the verge of grasping. (3) By the 
lowering of the habitual standard of interest and wages, 
which, as to interest, is shown by the negotiation of a govern- 
ment loan at four per cent., and as to wages is too generally 
evident for any special citation. When the equilibrium^ is 
thus re-established, a season of renewed activity, culminating 
in a speculative advance of land values will set in.* But 
wages and interest will not recover their lost ground. The 
net result of all these perturbations or wave-like movements 
is the gradual forcing of wages and interest towards their 
minimum. These temporary and recurring depressions 
exhibit, in fact, as was noticed in the opening chapter, but 
intensifications of the general movement which accompanies 
material progress. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY AMID ADVANCING WEALTH. 

The great problem, of which these recurring seasons of 
industrial depression are but peculiar manifestations, is now, 
I think, fully solved, and the social phenomena which all 
over^he civilized world appall the philanthropist and perplex 
the statesman, which hang with clouds the future oi the 
most advanced races, and suggest doubts of the reality and 
ultimate goal of what we have fondly called progress, are 
now explained. 

The reason why, in spite of the invrease of productive power, 
wages constantly tend to a minimum which will give but a bare 
living, is that, with increase in productive power, rent tends to 
even greater increase, thus producing a cojistant tendency to the 
forcifig down of wages. 

In every direction, the direct tendency of advancing civil- 

* This was written a year ago. It is now (July, 1879) evident that a new period 
of activity has commenced, as above predicted, and in New York and Chicago 
real estate prices have already begun to secover. 



204 THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 

ization is to increase the power of human labor to satisfy 
human desires — to extirpate poverty, and to banish want and 
the fear of want. Ali the things in which progress consists, 
all the conditions which progressive communities are striving 
for, have for their direct and natural result the improvement 
of the material (and consequently the intellectual and moral) 
condition of all within their influence. The growth of popu- 
lation, the increase and extension of exchanges, the discoveries 
of science, the march of invention, the spread of education, 
the improvement of government, and the amelioration of 
manners, considered as material forces, have all a direct 
tendency to increase the productive power of labor — not of 
some labor, but of all labor ; not in some departments of 
industry, but in all departments of industry ; for the law of 
the production of wealth in society is the law of " each for all, 
and all for each." 

But labor cannot reap the benefits which advancing civil- 
ization thus brings, because they are intercepted. Land 
being necessary to labor, and being reduced to private 
ownership, every increase in the productive power of labor 
but increases rent — the price that labor must pay for the 
opportunity to utilize its powers ; and thus all the advantages 
gained by the march of progress go to the owners of land, 
and wages do not increase. Wages cannot increase ; for the 
greater the earnings of labor the greater the price that labor 
must pay out of its earnings for the opportunity to make any 
earnings at all. The mere laborer has thus no more interest 
in the general advance of productive power than the Cuban 
slave has in advance in the price of sugar. And just as an 
advance in the price of sugar may make the condition of the 
slave worse, by inducing the master to drive him harder, so 
may the condition of the free laborer be positively, as well as 
relatively, changed for the worse by the increase in the pro- 
ductive power of his labor. For, begotten of the continuous 
advance of rents, arises a speculative tendency which 
discounts the effect of future improvements by a still further 
advance of rent, and thus tends, where this has not occurred 
from the normal advance of rent, to drive wages down to the 
slave point — the point at which the laborer can just live. 

And thus robbed of all the benefits of the increase in pro- 
ductive power, labor is exposed to certain effects of advancing 
civilization which, without the advantages that naturally 
accompany them, are positive evils, and of themselves tend 



THE PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY. 205 

xo reduce the free laborer to the helpless and degraded 
condition of the slave. 

For all the improvements which add to productive power 
as civilization advances, consist in, or necessitate, a still 
further subdivision of labor, and the efficiency of the whole 
body of laborers is increased at the expense of the indepen- 
dence of the constituents. The individual laborer acquires 
knowledge of, and skill in, but an infinitesimal part of the 
varied processes which are required to supply even the 
commonest wants. The aggregate produce of the labor of a 
savage tribe is small, but each member is capable of an 
independent life. He can build his own habitation, hew out 
or stitch together his own canoe, make his own clothing, 
manufacture his own weapons, snares, tools and ornaments. 
He has all the knov^edge of nature possessed by his tribe — 
knows what vegetable productions are fit for food, and where 
they may be found ; knows the habits and resorts of beasts, 
birds, fishes, and insects ; can pilot himself by the sun or the 
stars, by the turning of blossoms or the mosses on the trees ; 
is, in short, capable of supplying all his wants. He may be 
cut off from his fellows and still live ; and thus possesses an 
independent power which makes him a free contracting 
party in his relations to the community of which he is a 
member. 

Compare with this savage the laborer in the lowest ranks 
of civilized society, whose life is spent in producing but one 
thing, or oftener but the infinitesimal part of one thing, out 
of the multiplicity of things that constitute the wealth of 
society and ^o to supply even the most primitive wants ; who 
not only cannot make even the tools required for his work, 
but often works with tools that he does not own, and can 
never hope to own. Compelled to even closer and more con- 
tinuous laboT-^than the savage, and gaining by it no more than 
the savage gets — the mere necessaries of life — he loses the 
independence of the savage. He is not only unable to 
apply his ov/n powers to the direct satisfaction of his own 
wants, but, without the concurrence of many others, he is 
unable to apply them indirectly to the satisfaction of his 
wants. He is a mere link in an enormous chain of producers 
and consumers, helpless to separate himself, and helpless to 
move, except as they move. The worse his position in society, 
the more dependent is he on society ; the more utterly unable 
does he become to do anything for himself. The very power 
of exerting his labor for the satisfaction of his wants passes 



2o6 THE PROBLEM SOL VED. 

from his own control, and may be taken away or restO'red b} 
the actions of otliers, or by general causes over which he has 
no more influence than he has over the motions of the solar 
system. The primeval curse comes to be looked upon as a 
boon, and men think, and talk, and clamor, and legislate as 
though monotonous manual labor in itself were a good and 
not an evil, an end and not a means. Under such circum= 
stances, the man loses the essential quality of manhood — the 
godlike power of modifying and controlling conditions. He 
becomes a slave, a machine, a commodity — a thing, in some 
respects, lower than the animal. 

I am no sentimental admirer of the savage state. I do 
not get my ideas of the untutored children of nature from 
Rousseau, or Chateaubriand or Cooper. I am conscious of 
its material and mental poverty, and its low and narrow 
range. I believe that civilization is not only the natural 
destiny of man, but the enfranchisement, elevation, and re- 
finement of all his powers, and think that it is only in such 
moods as may lead him to envy the cud-chewing cattle, that a 
man who is free to the advantages of civilization could look 
with regret upon the savage state. But, nevertheless, I 
think no one who will open his eyes to the facts, can resist the 
conclusion that there are in the heart of our civilization large 
classes with whom the veriest savage could not afford to ex- 
change. It is my deliberate opinion that if, standing on the 
threshold of being, one were given the choice of entering 
life as a Terra del Fuegan, a black fellow of Australia, an 
Esquimaux in the Arctic Circle, or among the lowest classes 
in such a highly civilized country as Great Britain, he would 
make infinitely the better choice in selecting the lot of the 
savage. For those classes who in the midst of wealth are 
condemned to want, suffer all the privations of the savage, 
without his sense of personal freedom ; they are condemned 
to more than his narrowness and littleness, without oppor- 
tunity for the growth of his rude virtues ; if their horizon is 
wider, it is but to reveal blessings that they cannot enjoy. 

There are some to whom this may seem like exaggeration, 
but it is only because they have never suffered themselves to 
realize the true condition of those classes upon whom the 
iron heel of modern civilization presses with full force. As 
De Tocqueville observes, in one of his letters to Mme 
Swetchine, " we so soon become used to the thought of want 
that we do not feel, that an evil which grows greater to the 
sufferer the longer it lasts becomes less to the observer by 



THE PERSISTENCE OE POVERTY. 207 

the very fact of its duration ; " and perhaps the best proof of 
the justice of this observation is that in cities where there 
exists a pauper class and a criminal class, where young girls 
shiver as they sew for bread, and tattered and barefooted 
children make a home in the streets, money is regularly 
raised to send missionaries to the heathen ! Send mis- 
sionaries to the heathen ! it would be laughable if it were not 
so sad. Baal no longer stretches forth his hideous, sloping 
arms ; but in Christian lands mothers slay their infants for a 
burial fee ! And I challenge the production from any authentic 
accounts of savage life of such descriptions of degradation 
as are to be found in official documents of highly civilized 
countries — in reports of Sanitary Commissioners and of 
inquiries into the condition of the laboring poor. 

The simple theory which I have outlined (if indeed it can 
be called a theory which is but the recognition of the most 
obvious relations) explains this conjunction of poverty with 
wealth, of low wages with high productive power, of degrada- 
tion amid enlightenment, of virtual slavery in political lil3erty. 
It harmonizes, as results flowing from a general and inexorable 
law, facts otherwise most perplexing, and exhibits the 
sequence and relation between phenomena that without 
reference to it are diverse and contradictory. It explains 
why interest and wages are higher in new than in older com- 
munities, though the average, as well as the aggregate, 
production of wealth is less. It explains why improvements 
which increase the productive power of labor and capital, 
increase the reward of neither. It explains what is commonly 
called the conflict between labor and capital, while proving 
the real harmony of interest between them. It cuts the last 
inch of ground from under the fallacies of protection, while 
showing why free trade fails to permanently benefit the work- 
ing classes. It explains why want increases with abundance, 
and wealth tends to greater and greater aggregations. It 
explains the periodically recurring depressions of industry 
without recourse either to the absurdity of " over-production " 
or the absurdity of " over-consumption." It explains the 
enforced idleness of large numbers of would-be producers, 
which wastes the productive force of advanced communities, 
without the absurd assumption that there is too little work to 
do, or that there are too many to do it. It explains the ill 
effects upon the laboring classes which often follow the intro- 
duction of machinery, without denying the natural advantages 
which the use of machinery gives. It explains the vice and 



2oS THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 

misery which show themselves amid dense population, 
without attributing to the laws of the All-Wise and All- 
Beneficent defects which belong only to the short-sighted and 
selfish enactments of men. 

This explanation is in accordance with all the facts. 

Look over the world to-day. In countries the most v/idely 
differing — under conditions the most diverse as to govern- 
ment, as to industries, as to tariffs, as to currency—you will 
find distress among the working classes ; but everywhere that 
you thus find distress and destitution in the midst of wealth, 
you will find that the land is monopolized ; that instead of 
being treated as the common property of the whole people, 
it is treated as the private property of individuals ; that, for 
its use by labor, large revenues are extorted from the 
earnings of labor. Look over the world to-day, comparing 
different countries with each other, and you will see that it is 
not the abundance of capital or the productiveness of labor 
that makes wages high or low ; but the extent to which the 
monopolizers of land can, in rent, levy tribute upon the 
earnings of labor. Is it not a notorious fact, known to the 
most ignorant, that new countries, where the aggregate 
wealth is small, but where land is cheap, are always better 
countries for the laboring classes than the rich countries, 
where land is dear ? Wherever you find land relatively low, 
will you not find wages relatively high ? And wherever land 
is high, will you not find wages low ? As land increases in 
value, poverty deepens and pauperism appears. In the new 
settlements, where land is cheap, you will find no beggars, 
and the inequalities in condition are very slight. In the 
great cities, where land is so valuable that it is measured by 
the foot, you will find the extremes of poverty and of luxury. 
And this disparity in condition between the two extremes of 
the social scale may always be measured b}^ the price of land. 
Land in New York is more valuable than in San Francisco ; 
and in New York, the San Franciscan may see squalor and 
misery that will make him stand aghast. Land is more 
valuable in London than in New York; and in London, 
there is squalor and destitution worse than that of New 
York. 

Compare the same country in different times, and the 
same relation is obvious. As the result of much investiga- 
tion, Hallam says he is convinced that the wages of manual 
labor were greater in amount in England during the middle 
ages than they are now. Whether this is so or not, it is 



THE PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY. 209 

evident that they could not have been much, if any, less. 
The enormous increase in the efficiency of labor, which even 
in agriculture is estimated at seven or eight hundred per 
cent, and in many branches of industry is almost incalcu- 
lable, has only added to rent. The rent of agricultural land 
in England is now, according to Professor Rogers, 120 times 
as great, measured in money, as it was 500 years ago, and 14 
times as great, measured in wheat ; while in the rent of 
building land, and mineral land, the advance has been 
enormously greater. According to the estimate of Professor 
Fawcett, the capitalized rental value of the land of England 
now amounts to ^4,500,000,000, or $21,870,000,000, — that 
is to say, a few thousand of the people of England hold a 
lien upon the labor of the rest, the capitalized value of which 
is more than twice as great as, at the average price of 
Southern negroes in i860, would be the value of the whole 
population were they slaves. 

In Belgium and Flanders, in France and Germany, the 
rent and selling price of agricultural land have doubled 
within the last thirty years.* In short, increased power of 
production has everywhere added to the value of land ; 
nowhere has it added to the value of labor ; for though 
actual wages may in some places have somewhat risen, the 
rise is clearly attributable to other causes. In more places 
they have fallen — that is where it has been possible for them 
to fall — for there is a minimum below which laborers cannot 
keep up their numbers. And, everywhere, wages, as a pro- 
portion of the produce, have decreased. 

How the Black Death brought about the great rise of 
wages in England in the Fourteenth Century is clearly (^s- 
cernible, in the efforts of the land holders to regulate wages 
by statute. That that awful reduction in population, instead 
of increasing, really reduced the effective power of labor, 
there can be no doubt ; but the lessening of competition for 
]and still more greatly reduced rent, and wages advanced so 
largely that force and penal laws were called in to keep them 
down. The reverse effect followed the monopolization of 
land that went on in England during the reign of Henry 
VIII, in the enclosure of commons and the division of the 
church lands between the panders and parasites who were 
thus enabled to found noble families. The result was the 
same as that to which a speculative increase in land values 
tends. According to Malthus (who, in his " Principles of 

* Systems of Land Tenure . published by the Cobden Club. 
14 



2IO THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 

Political Economy," mentions the fact without connecting it 
with land tenures), in the reign of Henry VII, half a bushel 
of wheat w^ould purchase but little more than a day's common 
labor, but in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, half a 
bushel of wheat would purchase three days' common labor. 
I can hardly believe that the reduction in wages could have 
been so great as this comparison would indicate ; but that 
there was a reduction in common wages, and great distress 
among the laboring classes, is evident from the complaints of 
" sturdy vagrants" and the statutes made to suppress them. 
The rapid monopolization of the land, the carrying of the 
speculative rent line beyond the normal rent line, produced 
tramps and paupers, just as like effects from like causes 
have lately been evident in the United States. 

" Land which went heretofore for twenty or forty pounds a 
year," said Hugh Latimer, " now is let for fifty or a hundred. 
My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own ; only 
he had a farm at a rent of three or four pounds by the year 
at the uttermost, and thereupon he tilled so much as kept 
half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and 
my mother milked thirty kine ; he was able and did find the 
King a harness with himself and his horse when he came to 
the place that he should receive the King's wages. I can 
remember that I buckled his harness when he went to 
Blackheath Field. He kept me to school ; he married my 
sisters with five pound a piece, so that he brought them up 
in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his 
neighbors and some alms he gave to the poor. And all this 
he did of the same farm, where he that now hath it payeth 
sixteen pounds rent or more by year, and is not able to do 
anything for his Prince, for himself, nor for his children, nor 
to give a cup of drink to the poor." 

" In this way," said Sir Thomas More, referring to the 
ejectment of small farmers which characterized this advance 
of rent, " it comes to pass that these poor wretches, men, 
women, husbands, orphans, widows, parents with little 
children, householders greater in number than in Avealth, all 
of these emigrate from their native fields, without knowing 
where to go." 

And so from the stuff of the Latimers and Mores — from 
the sturdy spirit that amid the flames of the Oxford stake 
cried, '' Play the man. Master Ridley ! " and the mingled 
strength and sweetness that neither prosperity could taint 
nor the axe of the executioner abash — were evolved thieves 



THE PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY. 211 

and vagrants, the mass of criminality and pauperism that 
still blights the innermost petals and preys a gnawing worm 
at the root of England's rose. 

But it were as well to cite historical illustrations of the 
attraction of gravitation. The principle is as universal and 
as obvious. That rent must reduce wages, is as clear as tliat 
the greater the subtracter the less the remainder. That 
rent does reduce wages, any one, wherever situated, can s€e by 
merely looking around him. 

There is no mystery as to the cause which so suddenly 
and so largely raised wages in California in 1849, and in 
Australia in 1852. It was the discovery of the placer mines 
in unappropriated land to which labor was free that raised 
the wages of cooks in San Francisco restaurants to $500 a 
month, and left ships to rot in the harbor without officers or 
crew until their owners would consent to pay rates that in 
any other [part of the globe seemed fabulous. Had these 
mines been on appropriated land, or had they been immedi- 
ately monopolized so that rent could have arisen, it would 
have been land values that would have leaped upward, not 
wages. The Comstock lode has been richer than the placers, 
but the Comstock lode was readily monopolized, and it is 
only by virtue of the strong organization of the Miners' 
Association and the fears of the damage which it might do, 
that enables men to get four dollars a day for parboiling 
themselves two thousand feet underground, where the air 
'that they breathe must be pumped down to them. The 
wealth of the Comstock lode has added to rent. The selling 
price of these mines runs up into hundreds of millions, and 
it has produced individual fortunes whose monthly returns 
can only be estimated in hundreds of thousands, if not in 
millions. Nor is there any mystery about the cause which 
has operated to reduce wages in California from the maxi- 
mum of the early days to very nearly a level with wages in 
the Eastern States, and that is still operating to reduce them. 
The productiveness of labor has not decreased, on the 
contrary it has increased, as I have before shown ; but, out 
of what it produces, labor has now to pay rent. As the 
placer deposits were exhausted, labor had to resort to the 
deeper mines and to agricultural land, but monopolization of 
these being permitted, men now walk the streets of San 
Francisco ready to go to work for almost anything — for 
natural opportunities are now no longer free to labor. 



2 r 2 THE PR OBLEM SOL VED. 

The truth is self-evident. Put to any one capable of 
consecutive thought this question : 

" Suppose there should arise from the English Channel or 
the German Ocean a No-man's land on which common labor 
to an unlimited amount should be able to make ten shillings 
a day and which should remain unappropriated and of free 
access, like the commons which once comprised so large a 
part of English soil. What would be the effect upon wages 
in England ? " 

He would at once tell you that common wages throughout 
England must soon increase to ten shillings a day. 

And in response to another question, " What would be the 
effect on rents t " he would at a moment's reflection say that 
rents must necessarily fall ; and if he thought out the next 
step he would tell you that all this would happen without any 
very large part of English labor being diverted to the new 
natural opportunities, or the forms and direction of industry 
being much changed ; only that kind of production being 
abandoned which now yields to labor and to landlord 
together less than labor could secure on the new opportunities. 
The great rise in wages would be at the expense of rent. 

Take now the same man or another — some hard-headed 
business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make 
money. Say to him : " Here is a little village ; in ten years 
it v/ill be a great city — in ten years the railroad will have 
taken the place of the stage-coach, the electric light of the 
candle ; it will abound with all the machinery and improve- 
ments that so enormously multiply the effective power of 
labor. Will, in ten years, interest be any higher ? " 

He will tell you, " No ! " 

"Will the wages of common labor be any higher; will it 
be easier for a man who has nothing but his labor to make 
an independent living ? " 

He will tell you, " No ; the wages of common labor will 
not be any higher ; on the contrary, all the chances are 
that they wdll be lower; it will not be easier for the mere 
laborer to make an independent living • the chances are that 
it will be harder." 

" What, then, will be higher ? " 

" Rent ; the value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of 
ground, and hold possession." 

And if, under such circumstances, you take his advice, you 
need do nothing more. You may sit down and smoke your 
pipe ; you may Jie around like the lazzaroni of Naples or the 



THE PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY. 213 

leperos of Mexico : you may go up in a balloon, or clown a 
hole in the ground ; and without doing one stroke of work, 
without adding one iota to the wealth of the community, in 
ten years you will be rich 1 In the new city you may have a 
luxurious mansion ; but among its public buildings will be an 
almshouse. 

In all our long investigation we have been advancing to 
this simple truth : That as land is necessary to the exertion 
of labor in the production of wealth, to command the land 
which is necessary to labor, is to command all the fruits of 
labor save enough to enable labor to exist. We have been 
advancing as through an enemy's country, in v/hich every 
step must be secured, every position fortified, and.^^ every by- 
path explored ; for this siniple truth, in its application to 
social and political problems, is hid from the great masses of 
men partly by its very simplicity, and in greater part by wide- 
spread fallacies and erroneous habits of thought which lead 
them to look in every direction but the right one for an 
explanation of the evils which oppress and threaten the 
civilized world. And back of these elaborate fallacies and 
misleading theories, is an active, energetic power, a power 
that in every country, be its political forms what they may, 
writes laws and molds thought — the power of a vast and 
dominant pecuniary interest. 

But so simple and so clear is this truth, that to fully see it 
once is always to recognize it. There are pictures which, 
though looked at again and again, present only a confused 
labyrinth of lines or scroll work — a landscape, trees, or 
something of the kind — until once the attention is called |to 
the fact that these thmgs make up a face or a figure. This 
relation once recognized, is always afterwards clear. It is 
so in this case. In the li2:ht of this truth all social facts 
group themselves in an orderly relation, and the most diverse 
phenomena are seen to spring from one great principle. It 
is not in the relations of capital and labor ; it is not in the 
pressure of population against subsistence, that an explana- 
tion of the unequal development of our civilization is to be 
found. The great cause of inequality in the distribution of 
wealth is inequality in the ownership of land. The owner- 
ship of land is the great fundamental fact which ultimately 
determines the social, the political, and consequently the 
intellectual and moral condition of a people. And it must 
be so. For land is the habitation of man, the storehouse 
upon which he must draw for all his needs, the material to 



214 77^E PROBLEM SOLVED, 

which his labor must be applied for the supply of all his 
desires ; for even the products of the sea cannot be taken, 
the light of the sun enjoyed, or any of the forces of nature 
utilized, without the use of land or its products. On the 
land we are born, from it we live, to it we return again — < 
children of the soil as truly as is the blade of grass or the 
flower of the field. Take away from man all that belongs 
to land, and he is but a disembodied spirit. Material pro^ 
gress cannot rid us of our dependence upon land ; it can but 
add to the power of producing wealth from land; and hence, 
when land is monopolized, it might go on to infinity without 
increasing wages or improving the condition of those who 
have but their labor. It can but add to the value of land 
and the power which its possession gives. Everywhere, in 
all times, among all peoples, the possession of land is the 
base of aristocracy, the foundation of great fortunes, the 
source of power. As said the Brahmins, ages ago — 

" To whomsoever the soil at any time belongs, to him belong 
the fruits of it. White parasols and elephants mad with pridt 
are the flowers of a grant of land,^^ 



BOOK VI. 



THE REMEDY. 



A new and fair division of the goods and rights of this world should be the mai< 
object of those who conduct human affairs. — De Tocqueville. 



When the object is to raise the permanent condition of a people, small means da 
not merely produce small effects ; they produce no effect at a\\.—John Stuart Mill. 



CHAPTER I. 

INEFFICIENCY OF REMEDIES CURRENTLY ADVOCATED. 

In tracing to its source the cause of increasing poverty 
amid advancing wealth, we have discovered the remedy ; but 
before passing to that branch of our subject it will be well to 
review the tendencies or remedies which are currently relied 
on or advocated. The remedy to which our conclusions 
point is at once radical and simple — so radical that, on the 
one side, it will not be fairly considered so long as any faith 
remains in the efficacy of less caustic measures ; so simple 
that, on the other side, its real efficacy and comprehensiveness 
are likely to be overlooked, until the effect of more elaborate 
measures is estimated. 

The tendencies and measures which current literature and 
discussions show to be more or less relied on or advocated 
as calculated to relieve poverty and distress among the 
masses, may be divided into six classes. I do not mean that 
there are so many distinct parties or schools of thought, but 
merely that for the purpose of our inquiry, prevailing opinions 
and proposed measures may be so grouped for review. Reme- 
dies which for the sake of greater convenience and clearness 
We shall consider separately are often combined in thought. 

There are many persons who still retain a comfortable 
belief that material progress will ultimately extirpate poverty, 
and there are many who look to prudential restraint upon the 
increase of population as the most efficacious means, bu*^ the 



2i6 THE REMEDY. 

fallacy of these views has already been sufficiently shown. 
Let us now consider what may be hoped for : 
■I. From greater economy in government. 
II. From the better education of the working classes 
and improved habits of industry and thrift. 

III. From combinations of workmen for the advance of 
wages. 

IV. From the co-operation of labor and capital. 

V. From governmental direction and interference. 

VI. From a more general distribution of land. 

Under these six heads I think we may in essential form 
review all hopes and propositions for the relief of social 
distress short of the simple but far reaching measure which I 
shall propose. 

I. — From Greater Economy m Gover7tment. 

Until a very few years ago it was an article of faith with 
Americans — a belief shared by Eur-opean liberals — that the 
poverty of the down-trodden masses of the Old World was 
due to aristocratic and monarchical institutions. This belief 
has rapidly passed away with the appearance in the United 
States, under republican institutions, of social distress of the 
same kind, if not of the same intensity, as that prevailing in 
Europe. But social distress is still largely attributed to the 
immense burdens which existing governments impose — the 
great debts, the military and naval establishments, the 
extravagance which is characteristic as well of republican as 
of monarchical rulers, and especially characteristic of the 
administration of great cities. To these must be added, in 
the United States, the robbery involved in the protective 
tariff, which for every twenty-five cents it puts in the treasury 
takes a dollar, and it may be, four or five, out of the pocket 
of the consumer. Now, there seems to be an evident connection 
between the immense sums thus taken from the people and 
the privations of the lower classes, and it is upon a superficial 
view natural to suppose that a reduction in the enormous 
burdens thus uselessly imposed would make it easier for the 
poorest to get a living, But a consideration of the matter in 
the light of the economic principles heretofore traced out will 
show that this would not be the effect. A reduction in the 
amount taken from the aggregate produce of a community by 
taxation would be simply equivalent to an increase in the 
power of net production. It would in effect add to the 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDIES. 217 

productive power of labor just as do the increasing density of 
population and improvement in the arts. And as the 
advantage in the one case goes, and must go, to the owners 
of land, in increased rent, so would the advantage in the 
other. 

From the produce of the labor and capital of England are 
now supported the burden of an immense debt, an established 
Church, an expensive royal family, a large number of sine- 
curists, a great army and great navy. Suppose the debt 
repudiated, the Church disestablished, the royal family set 
adrift to make a living for themselves, the sinecurists cut off, 
the army disbanded, the officers and men of the navy 
discharged and the ships sold. An enormous reduction in 
taxation would thus become possible. There would be a 
great addition to the net produce which remains to be 
distributed among the parties to production. But it would 
only be such an addition as improvement in the arts has 
been for a long time constantly making, and not so great an 
addition as steam and machinery have made within the last 
twenty or thirty years. And as these additions have not 
alleviated pauperism, but have only increased rent, so would 
this. English land owners would reap the whole benefit, I 
will not dispute that if all these things could be done suddenly, 
and without the destruction and expense involved in a revo- 
lution, there might be a temporary improvement in the 
condition of the lowest class ; but such a sudden and 
peaceable reform is manifestly impossible. And if it were, 
any temporary improvement would, by the process we now 
see going on in the United States, be ultimately swallowed 
up by increased land values. 

And so, in the United States, if we were to reduce public 
expenditures to the lowest possible point, and meet them by 
revenue taxation, the benefit could certainly not be greater 
than that which railroads have brought. There would be 
more wealth left in the hands of the people as a whole, just 
as the railroads have put more wealth in the hands of the 
people as a whole, but the same inexorable laws would operate 
as to its distribution. The condition of those who live by their 
labor would not ultimately be improved. 

A dim consciousness of this pervades — or, rather, is begin- 
ning to pervade — the masses, and constitutes one of the 
grave political difficulties that are closing in around the 
American republic. Those who have nothing but their labor, 
and especially the proletarians of the cities — a growing 



2i8 THE REMEDY. 

class — care little about the prodigality of government, and in 
many cases are disposed to look ui3on it as a good thing — 
"furnishing employment," or "i^utting money in circula- 
tion." Tweed, who robbed New York as a guerrilla chief 
might levy upon a captured town (and who was but a type of 
the new banditti who are grasping the government of all our 
cities), was undoubtedly popular with a majority of the 
voters, though his thieving was notorious, and his spoils 
were blazoned in big diamonds and lavish personal expeildi- 
ture. After his indictment, he was triumphantly elected to 
the Senate ; and, even when a recaptured fugitive, was 
frequently cheered on his way from court to prison. He had 
robbed the public treasury of many millions, but the proleta- 
rians felt that he had not robbed them. And the verdict of 
political economy is the same as theirs. 

Let me be clearly understood. I do not say that govern- 
mental economy is not desirable ; but simply that reduction 
in the expenses of government can have no direct effect 
in extirpating poverty and increasing wages, as long as land 
is monopolized. 

Although this is true, yet even with sole reference to the 
interests of the lowest class, no effort should be spared to 
keep down useless expenditures. The more complex and 
extravagant government becomes, the more it gets to be a 
power distinct from and independent of the people, and the 
more difficult does it become to bring questions of real 
public policy to a popular decision. Look at our elections 
in the United States — upon what do they turn ? The most 
momentous problems are pressing upon us, yet so great is the 
amount* of money in politics, so large are the personal 
interests involved, that the most important questions of 
government are but little considered. The average American 
voter has prejudices, party feelings, general notions of a 
certain kind, but he gives to the fundamental questions of 
government not much more thought than a street car horse 
does to the profits of the line. Were this not the case, so 
many hoary abuses could not have survived and so many new 
ones been added. Anything that tends to make government 
simple and inexpensive tends to put it under control of the 
people, and to bring questions of real importance to the 
front. But no reduction in the expenses of government can 
of itself cure or mitigate the evils that arise from a constant 
tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth. 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDIES. 219 

JI. — From the Diffusion of Education aiid Improved Habits 
of Industry and Thrift. 

There is and always has been, a wide-spread behef among 
the more comfortable classes that the poverty and suffering 
of the masses are due to their lack of industry, frugality, and 
intelligence. This belief, which at once soothes the sense of 
responsibility and flatters by its suggestion of superiority, is 
probably even more prevalent in countries like the United 
States, where all men are politically equal, and where, owing 
to the newness of society, the differentiation into classes has 
been of individuals rather than of families, than it is in older 
countries, where the lines of separation have been longer, and 
are more sharply, drawn. It is but natural for those who can 
trace their own better circumstances to the superior industry 
and frugality that gave them a start, and the superior intelligence 
that enabled them to take advantage of every opportunity,* to 
imagine that those who remain poor do so simply from lack 
of these qualities. 

But whoever has grasped the laws of the distribution of 
wealth, as in previous chapters they have been traced out, 
will see the mistake in this notion. The fallacy is similar to 
that which would be involved in the assertion that every one 
of a number of competitors might win a race. That any one 
might is true; that every one might is impossible. 

For, as soon as land acquires a value, wages, as we have 
seen, do not depend upon the real earnings or product of 
labor, but upon what is left to labor after rent is taken out ; 
and when land is all monopolized, as it is everywhere except 
in the newest communities, rent must drive wages down to 
the point at which the poorest paid class will be just able to 
live and reproduce, and thus wages are forced *o a minimum 
fixed by what is called the standard of comfort — that is, the 
amount of necessaries and comforts which habit leads the 
working classes to demand as the lowest on which they will 
consent to maintain their numbers. This being the case, 
industry, skill, frugality, and intelligence can only avail the 
individual in so far as they are superior to the general level — 
just as in a race speed can only avail the runner in so far as 
it exceeds that of his competitors. If one man work harder, 
or with superior skill or intelligence than ordinary, he will get 
ahead ; but if the average of industry, skill, or intelligence is 

* To say nothing of superior want of conscience, which is often the determining 
quality which makes a millionaire out of one who otherwise might havebeeaa »oor 
man. 



220 THE REMEDY. 

brought up to the higher point, the increased intensiiy of 
appUcation will secure but the old rate of wages, and he who 
would get ahead must work harder still. 

One individual may save money from his wages by living 
as Dr. Franklin did when, during his apprenticeship and 
early journeyman days, he concluded to practice vegetarian- 
ism ; and many poor families might be made more comfortable 
by being taught to prepare the cheap dishes to which Frank- 
lin tried to limit the appetite of his employer Keimer, as a 
condition to his acceptance of the position of confuter of 
opponents to the new religion of which Keimer wished to 
become the prophet,* but if the working classes generally 
came to live in that way, wages would ultimately fall in pro- 
portion, and whoever wished to get ahead by the practice of 
economy, or to mitigate poverty by teaching it, would be com- 
pelled to devise some still cheaper mode of keeping soul and 
body together. If, under existing conditions, American 
mechanics would come down to the Chinese standard of 
living, they would ultimately have to come down to the 
Chinese standard of wages; or if English laborers would 
content themselves with the rice diet and scanty clothing of 
the Bengalee, labor would soon be as ill paid in England as 
in Bengal. The introduction of the potato into Ireland was 
expected to improve the condition of the poorer classes, by 
increasing the difference between the wages they received and 
the cost of their living. The consequences that did ensue 
were a rise of rent and a lowering of wages, and, wdth the 
potato blight, the ravages of famine among a population 
that had already reduced its standard of comfort so low that 
the next step was starvation. 

Andj so, if one individual work more hours than the aver- 
age, he v/ill increase his wages; but the wages of all cannot 
be increased in this way. It is notorious that in occupations 
where working hours are long, wages are not higher than 
where working hours are shorter; generally the reverse, for 
the longer the working day, the more helpless does the laborer 
become — the less time has he to look around him and 
develop other powers than those called forth by his work ; 
the less becomes his ability to change his occupation or to 
take advantage of circumstances. And, so, the individual 
workman who gets his wife and children to assist him may 

* Franklin, in his inimitable way, relates how Keimer finally broke his resolution 
and ordering a roast pig invited two lady friends to dine with him, but the pig 
being brought in before the company arrived, Keimer could not resist the tempta-. 
tion and ate it all himself. 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDIES. 221 

thus increase his income ; but in occupations where it has 
become habitual for the wife and children of the laborer to 
supplement his work, it is notorious that the wages earned 
by the whole family do not on the average exceed those of 
the head of the family in occupations where it is usual for 
him only to work. Swiss family labor in watch-making com- 
petes in cheapness with American machinery. The Bohe- 
mian cigar makers of New York, who work, men, women and 
children, in their tenement-house rooms, have reduced the 
prices of cigar making to less than the Chinese in San Fran 
cisco were getting. 

These general facts are well known. They are fully recog^ 
nized in standard politico-economic works, where, however, 
they are explained upon the Malthusian theory of the 
tendency of population to multiply up to the limit of subsist- 
ence. The true explanation, as I have sufficiently shown, 
is in the tendency of rent to reduce wages. 

As to the effects of education, it may be worth while to say 
a few words speciall}^, for there is a prevailing disposition to 
attribute to it something like a magical influence. Now, 
education is only education in so far as it enables a man to 
more effectively use his natural powers, and this is something 
that what we call education in very great part fails to do. I 
remember a little girl, pretty well along in her school geogra- 
phy and astronomy, who was much astonished to find that the 
ground in her mother's back 5^ard was really the surface of 
the earth, and, if you talk with them, you will find that a good 
deal of the knowledge of many college graduates is much like 
that of the little girl. They seldom think any better, and 
sometimes not so well as men who have never been to 
college. 

A gentleman who had spent many years in Australia, and 
knew intimately the habits of the aborigines (Rev. Dr. Blees- 
dale), after giving some instances of their wonderful skill in 
the use of their weapons, in foretelling changes in the wind 
and weather and in trapping the shyest birds, once said to me_, 
'^ I think it a great mistake to look on these black fellows as 
ignorant. Their knowledge is different from ours, but in it 
they are generally better educated. As soon as they begin 
to toddle, they are tiaight to play with little boomerangs and 
other weapons, to observe and to judge, and when they are 
old enough to take care of themselves, they are fully able to 
do so — are, in fact, in reference to the nature of their knowl- 
edge, what I should call well-educated gentlemen; which is 



232 THE K^EMEDY. 

more than I can say for many of cur young fellows who have 
had what we call the best advantages, but who enter upon man- 
hood unable to do anythkig either for themselves or for others." 

Be this as it may, it is evident that intelligence, which 
is or should be the aim of education, until it induces and 
enables the masses to discover and remove the cause of 
the unequal distribution of wealth, can only operate upon 
wages by increasing the effective power of labor. It has the 
same eifect as increased skill or industry. And it can only 
raise the wages of the individual in so far as it renders him 
superior to others. When to read and write were rare accom- 
plishro.ents, a clerk com/manded high respect and large wages, 
bat now the ability to read and write has become so nearly 
universal as to give no advantage. Among the Chinese the 
ability to read and write seems absolutely universal, but wages 
in China touch the lowest possible point. The diffusion of 
intelligence, except as it may make men discontented with a 
state of things which condemns producers to a life of toil 
while non-producers loll in luxury, cannot tend to raise wages 
generally, or in any way improve the condition of the lowest 
class— the " mud-sills" of society, as a Southern Senator once 
called them — who must rest on the soil, no matter how high 
the superstructure may be carried. No increase of the effec- 
tive power of labor can increase general wages, so long as 
rent swallows up all the gain. This is not merely a deduction 
from principles. It is the fact, proved by experience. The 
growth of knowledge and the progress of invention have mul- 
tiplied the effective power of labor over and over again with> 
out increasing wages. In England there are over a million 
paupers. In the United States almhouses are increasing and 
wages are decreasing. 

It is true that greater industry and skill, greater prudence, 
and a higher intelligence, are, as a rule, found associated 
with a better material condition of the working classes ; but 
that this is effect, not cause, is shown by the relation of the 
facts. Wherever the material condition of the laboring 
classes has been improved, improvement in their personal 
qualities has followed, and wherever their material condition 
has been depressed, deterioration iu these qualities has been 
the result ; but nowhere can improvement in material condi- 
tion be shown as the result of the increase of industry, skill, 
prudence, or intelligence in a class condemned to toil for a 
bare living, though these qualities when once attained (or, 
rather, their concomitant — the improvement in the standard 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDIES. 223 

of comfort) offer a strong, and, in many cases, a sufficient, 
resistance to the lowering of material condition. 

The fact is, that the qualities that raise man above the ani'^ 
mal are superimposed on those w hich he shares with the animal, 
and that it is only as he is relieved from the wants o.f his animal 
nature, that his intellectual and moral nature can grow. Com- 
pel a man to drudgery for the necessities of animal existence, 
and he will lose the incentive to industry — the progenitor of 
skill — and will do only what he is forced to do. Make his Qr--:.' 
dition such that it cannot be much worse, while there is little 
hope that any tiling he can do will make it much better, and he 
will cease to look beyond the day. Deny him leisure— and leis- 
ure does not mean the want of employment, but the absence of 
the need which forces to uncongenial employment — and you 
cannot, even by running the child through a common school 
and supplying the man with a newspaper, make him intelligent. 

It is true that improvement in the material condition 
of a people or class may not show immediately in mental 
and moral improvement. Increased wages may at first 
be taken out in idleness and dissipation. But they will 
viltimately bring increased industry, skill, intelligence, and 
thrift. Comparisons between different countries; between 
different classes in the same country ; between the same peo- 
ple at different periods ; and 'between the same people when 
their conditions are changed by emigration, show, as an 
invariable result, that the personal qualities of which we are 
speaking appear as material conditions are improved, and 
disappear as material conditions are depressed. Poverty is 
the Slough of Despond which Bunyan saw in his dream, and 
into v/hich good books may be tossed forever without result. 
To make people industrious, prudent, skillful, and intelligent, 
they must be relieved from want. If you would have the 
slave show the virtues of the freeman, you must first make 
him free. * 

///. — From Combinations of Workmen. 

It is evident from the laws of distribution, as previously 
traced, that combinations of workmen can advance wages, 
and this not at the expense of other workmen, as is sometimes 
said, not yet at the ex()ense of capital, as is generally believed ; 
but, ultimately, at tKe expense of rent. That no general 
advance in wages can be secured by combination; that 
any advance in particular wages thus secured must reduce other 
wages or the profits of capital, or both — are ideas that spring 



224 THE REMEDY. 

from the erroneous notion that wages are drawn from capital. 
The fallacy of these ideas is demonstrated, not alone by the 
laws of distribution as we have worked them out, but by 
experience, as far as it has gone. The advance of wages in 
particular trades by combinations of workmen, of which 
there are many examples, has nowhere shown any effect in 
lowering wages in other trades, or in reducing the rate of 
profits. Except as it may affect his fixed capital or current 
engagements, a diminution of wages can only benefit, and an 
increase of wages only injure an employer, in so far as it 
gives him an advantage or puts him at a disadvantage as com- 
pared with other employers. The employer who first succeeds 
in reducing the wages of his hands, or is first compelled to pay 
an advance, gains an advantage, or is put at a disadvantage in 
regard to his competitors, which ceases when the movement 
includes them also. So far, however, as the change in wages 
affects his contracts or stock on hand, by changing the rela- 
tive cost of production, it may be to him a real gain or loss, 
though this gain or loss, being purely relative, disappears when 
the whole community is considered. And, if the change in 
wages works a change in relative demand, it may render capital 
fixed in machinery, buildings, or otherwise, more or less profita- 
ble. But, in this, a new equilibrium is soon reached ; for especial- 
ly in a progressive country, fixed capital is only somewhat less 
mobile than circulating capital. If there is too little in a cer- 
tain form, the tendency of capital to assnme that form soon 
brings it up to the required amount ; if there is too much, the 
cessation of increment soon restores the level. 

But, while a change in the rate of wages in any particular 
occupation may induce a change in the relative demand for 
labor, it can produce no change in the aggregate demand. 
For instance, let us suppose that a combination of the w^ork- 
men engaged in any particular manufacture raise wages in one 
country, while a combination of employers reduce wages in 
the same manufacture in another country. If the change be 
great enough, the demand, or part of the demand, in the first 
country will now be supplied by importation of such manu- 
factures from the second. But, evidently, this increase in 
importations of a particular kind must necessitate either a 
corresponding decrease in importations of other kinds, or a 
corresponding increase in exportations. For, it is only with 
the produce of its labor and capital, that one country can 
demand, or can obtain, in exchange, the produce of the 
labor and capital of another. The idea that the lowering of 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDIES. zz^ 

wages can increase, or the increase of wages can diminish, 
the trade of a country, is as baseless as the idea that the pros- 
perity of a country can be increased by taxes on imports, or 
diminished by the removal of restrictions on trade. If all 
wages in any particular country were to be doubled, that 
country would continue to export and import the same things, 
and in the same proportions ; for exchange is determmed not 
by absolute, but by relative, cost of production. But, if 
wages in some branches of production were doubled, and in 
others not increased, or not increased so much, there would 
be a change in the proportion of the various things imported, 
but no change in the proportion between exports and 
imports. 

While most of the objections made to the combination of 
workmen for the advance of wages are thus baseless, while 
the success of such combinations cannot reduce other wages, 
or decrease the profits of capital, or injuriously affect national 
prosperity, yet so great are the difficulties in the way of the 
effective combinations of .laborers, that the good that can be 
accomplished by them is extremely limited, while there are 
inherent disadvantages in the process. 

To raises wages in a particular occupation or occupations, 
which is all that any combination of workmen yet made has 
been equal to attempting, is manifestly a task the difficulty of 
which progressively increases. For the higher are wages of 
any particular kind raised above their normal level with other 
wages, the stronger are the tendencies to bring them back. 
Thus, if a printer's union, by a successful or threatened strike, 
raise the wages of type-setting ten per cent above the normal 
rate as compared with other wages, relative demand and sup- 
ply are at once affected. On the one hand, there is a ten- 
dency to a diminution of the amount of type-setting called 
for ; and, on the other, the higher rate of v/ages tends to in- 
crease the number of compositers in ways the strongest com- 
bination cannot altogether prevent. If the increase be twenty 
per cent, these tendencies are much stronger ; if it is 
fifty per cent, they become stronger still, and so on. So 
that practically — even in countries like England, where the 
lines between different trades are much more distinct and 
difficult to pass than in countries like the United States — that 
which trades unions, even when supporting each other, can 
do in the way of raising wages is comparatively little, and 
this little, moreover, is confined to their own sphere, and does 
not affect the lower stratum of unorganized laborers^ whose 

IS 



226 THE REMEDY. 

condition most needs alleviation and ultimately determines 
that of all above them. The only way by which wages could 
be raised to any exte.nt and with any permanence by this 
method would be by a general combination, such as was aimed 
at by the Internationals, which should include laborers of all 
kinds. But such a combii:ation may be set down as practically 
impossible, for the difficulties of combination, great enough in 
the most highly paid and smallest trades, become greater and 
greater as we descend in the industrial scale. 

Nor, in the struggle of endurance, which is the only method 
which combinations, not to work for less than a certain min- 
imum, have of effecting the increase of wages, must it be 
forgotten who are the real parties pitted against each other. 
It is not labor and capital. It is laborers on the one side and 
the owners of land on the other. If the contest were 
between labor and capital, it would be on much more equal 
terms. For the power of capital to stand out is only some 
little greater than that of labor. Capital not only ceases to 
earn anything when not used, but it goes to waste — for in 
nearly all its forms it can only be maintained by constant 
reproduction. But land will not starve like laborers or go to 
waste like capital — its owners can wait. They may be incon- 
venienced, it is true, but what is inconvenience to them, is 
destruction to capital and starvation to labor. 

The agricultural laborers in certain parts of England are 
now endeavoring to combine for the purpose of securing an 
increase in their miserably low wages. If it was capital that 
was receiving the enormous difference between the real pro- 
duce of their labor and the pittance they get out of it, they- 
would have but to make an effective combination to secure 
success ; for the farmers, who are their direct employers, can 
afford to go without labor but little, if any, better than the 
laborers can afford to go without wages. But the farmers 
cannot yield much without a reduction of rent ; and thus it 
is between the land owners and ihe laborers that the real 
struggle must come. Suppose the combination to be so thor- 
ough as to include all agricultural laborers, and to prevent 
from doing so all who might be tempted to take their places. 
The laborers refuse to work except at a considerable advance 
of wages ; the farmers can only give it by securing a consid- 
erable reduction of rent, and have no way to back their de- 
mands except as the laborers back theirs, by refusing to go 
on with production. If cultivation thus comes to a dead-lock, 
the land owners would lose only their rent, while the land im- 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDIES. 227 

proved by lying fallow. But the laborers would starve. And 
if English laborers of all kinds were united in one grand 
league for a general increase of wages, the real contest would 
be the same, and under the same conditions. For wages 
could not be increased except to the decrease of rent ; and in 
a general dead-lock, land owners could live, while laborers of 
all sorts must starve or emigrate. The owners of the land of 
England are by virtue of their ownership the masters of Eng- 
land. So true is it that " to whomsoever the soil at any time 
belongs, to him belong the fruits of it." The white parasols 
and the elephants mad with pride passed with the grant of 
English land, and the people at large can never regain their 
power until that grant is resumed. What is true of England, 
is universally true. 

It may be said that such a dead-lock in production could 
never occur. This is true ; but only true because no such 
thorough combination of labor as might produce it is possi- 
ble. But the fixed and definite nature of land enables land 
owners to combine much more easily and efficiently than 
either laborers or capitalists. How easy and efficient their 
combination is, there are many historical examples. And the 
absolute necessity for the use of land, and the certainty in all 
progressive countries that it must increase in value, produce 
among land owners, without any formal combination, all the 
effects that could be produced by the most rigorous combina- 
tion among laborers or capitalists. Deprive a laborer of 
opportunity of employment, and he will soon be anxious to 
get work on any terms, but when the leceding wave of spec- 
ulation leaves nominal land values clearly above real values, 
whoever has lived in a growing country knows with what 
tenacity land owners hold on. 

And, besides these practical difficulties in the plan of forc- 
ing by endurance an increase -of wages, there are in such 
methods inherent disadvantages which workingmen should 
not blink. I speak without prejudice, for I am still an hon- 
orary member of the union which, while working at my trade, 
I always loyally supported. But, see : The methods by 
which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destruc- 
tive ; its organization is necessarily tyrannical. A strike, 
which is the only recourse by which a trade union can enforce 
its demands, is a destructive contest — just such a contest as 
that to which an eccentric, called " The Money King," once, 
in the early days of San Francisco, challenged a man who 
had taunted him with meanness, that they should go down to 



228 THE REMEDY, 

the wharf and alternately toss twenty-dollar pieces into he 
bay until one gave in. The struggle of endurance involved 
in a strike is, really, what it has often been compared to — a 
war ; and, like all war, it lessens wealth. And the or- 
ganization for it must, like the organization for war, be tyran- 
nical. As even the man who would fight for freedom, must, 
when he enters an army, give up his personal freedom and 
become a mere part in a great machine, so must it be with 
workmen who organize for a strike. These combinations are, 
therefore, necessarily destructive of the very things which 
workmen seek to gain through them — wealth and freedom. 

There is an ancient Hindoo mode of compelling the payment 
of a just debt, traces of something akin to which Sir Henry 
Maine has found in the laws of the Irish Brehons. It is 
called, sitting dharna — the creditor seeking enforcement of 
his debt by sitting down at the door of the debtor, and refus- 
ing to eat or drink until he is paid. 

Like this is the method of labor combinations. In their 
strikes, trades' unions sit dharna. But, unlike the Hindoo, 
they have not the power of superstition to back them. 

IV. — From Co-operation. 

It is now, and has been for some time, the fashion to preach 
co-operation as the sovereign remedy for the grievances of 
the working classes. But, unfortunately for the efhcacy of 
co-operation as a remedy for social evils, these evils, as we 
have seen, do not arise from any conflict between labor and 
capital ; and if co-operation were universal, it could not raise 
wages or relieve poverty. This is readily seen. 

Co-operation is of two kinds — co-operation in supply and 
co-operation in production. Now, co-operation in supply, let 
it go as far as it may in excluding middlemen, only reduces 
the cost of exchanges. It is' simply a device to save labor 
and eliminate risk, and its effect upon distribution can only 
be that of the improvements and inventions which have in 
modern times so wonderfully cheapened and facilitated 
exchanges — -viz., to increase rent. And co-operation in pro- 
duction is simply a reversion to that form of wages which still 
prevails in the whaling service, and is there termed a " lay." 
It is the substitution of proportionate wages for fixed wages 
— a substitution of which there are occasional instances in 
almost all employments ; or, if the management is left to the 
workmen, and the capitalist but takes his proportion of the 
net produce, it is simply the system that has prevailed to a 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDIES. 229 

large extent in European agriculture since the days of the Ro- 
man Empire — the colonial or metayer system. All that is claim- 
ed for co-operation in production is, that it makes the workman 
more active and industrious — in other words, that it increases 
the efificiency of labor. Thus its erfect is in the same direc- 
tion as the steam engine, the cotton gin, the reaping machine 
— in short, all the things in which material progress consists, 
and it can only produce the same result — viz., the increase of 
rent. 

It is a striking proof of how first principles are ignored in 
dealing with social problems, that in current economic and 
semi-economic literature so much importance is attached to 
co-operation as a means for increasing wages and relieving 
poverty. That it can have no such general tendency is 
apparent. 

Waiving all the difhculties that under present conditions 
beset co-operation either of supply or of production, and sup- 
posing it so extended as to supplant present methods — that 
co-operative stores made the connection between producer 
and consumer with the minimum of expense, and co-operative 
workshops, factories, farms, and mines, abolished the employ- 
ing capitalist who pays fixed wages, and greatly increased the 
efficiency of labor — what then ? Why, simply that it would 
become possible to produce the same amount of wealth with 
less labor, and consequently that the owners of land, the 
source of all wealth, could command a greater amount of 
wealth for the use of their land. This is not a matter of 
mere theory ; it is proved by experience and by existing facts. 
Improved methods and improved machinery have the same 
effect that co-operation aims at — of reducing the cost of 
bringing commodities to the consumer and increasing the 
etficiency of labor, and it is in these respects that the older 
countries have the advantage of new settlements. But, as 
experience has amply shown, improvements in the methods 
and machinery of production and exchange have no tendency 
to improve the condition of the lowest class, and wages are 
lower and poverty deeper where exchange goes on at the min- 
imum of cost and production has the benefit of the best ma- 
chinery. The advantage but adds to rent. 

But suppose co-operation between producers and land own- 
ers .'' That would simply amount to the payment of rent in 
kind — the same system under which much land is rented in 
California and the Southern States, where the land owner 
gets a share of the crop. Save as a matter of computation it 



«30 THE REMEDY. 

in no wise differs from the system which prevails in England 
of a fixed money rent. Call it co-operation, if you choose, 
the terms of the co-operation would still be fixed by the laws 
which determine rent, and wherever land was monopolized, 
increase in productive power would simply give the owners 
of the land the power to demand a larger share. 

That co-operation is by so many believed to be the solution 
of the " labor question " arises from the fact that, where it 
has been tried, it has in many instances improved perceptibly 
the condition of those immediately engaged in it. But this is 
due simply to the fact that these cases are isolated. Just as 
industry, economy, or skill may improve the condition of the 
w^orkmen who possess them in superior degree, but cease to 
have this effect when improvement in these respects becomes 
general, so a special advantage in procuring supplies, or a 
special efficiency given to some labor, may secure advantages 
which would be lost as soon as these improvements became 
so general as to affect the general relations of distribution. 
And the truth is, that, save possibly in educational effects, co- 
operation can produce no general results that competition will 
not produce. Just as the cheap-for-cash stores have a similar 
effect upon prices as the co-operative supply associations, so 
does competition in production lead to a similar adjustment 
of forces and division of proceeds as would co-operative pro- 
duction. That increasing productive power does not add to 
the reward of labor, is not because of competition, but because 
competition is one-sided. Land, without which there can be no 
production, is monopolized, and the competition of producers 
for its use forces wages to a minimum and gives all the 
advantage of increasing productive power to land owners, in 
higher rents and increased land values. Destroy this 
monopoly, and competition could only exist to accomplish 
the end which co-operation aims at — to give to each what he 
fairly earns. Destroy this monopol}^, and industry must 
become the co-operation of equals. 

V. — Fro7n Governmental Direction and Interference. 

The limits within which I wish to keep this book will not 
permit an examination in detail of the methods in which it 
is proposed to mitigate or extirpate poverty by governmental 
regulation of industry and accumulation, and which in their 
most thorough-going form are called socialistic. Nor is it 
necessary, for the same defects attach to them all. These 
are the substitution of governmental direction for the play of 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSEU REMEDIES. 231 

individual action, and the attempt to secure by restriction 
what can better be secured by freedom. As to the truths 
that are involved in socialistic ideas I shall have something 
to say hereafter; but it is evident that whatever savors of 
regulation and restriction is in itself bad, and should not be 
resorted to if any other mode of accomplishing the same end 
presents itself. For instance, to take one of the simplest and 
mildest of the class of measures I refer to — -a graduated tax 
on incomes. The object at which it aims, the reduction or 
prevention of immense concentrations of wealth, is good ; 
but this means involves the employment of a large number 
of officials clothed with inquisitorial powers ; temptations to 
bribery, and perjury, and all other means of evasion, which 
beget a demoralization of opinion, and put a premium upon 
unscrupulousness and a tax upon conscience ; and, finally, 
just in proportion as the tax accomplishes its effect, a lessen- 
ing in the incentive to the accumulation of wealth, which is 
one of the strong forces of industrial progress. While, if the 
elaborate schemes for regulating everything and finding a 
place for everybody could be carried out, we should have a 
state of society resembling that of ancient Peru, or that which, 
to their eternal honor, the Jesuits instituted and so long main- 
tained in Paraguay. 

I will not say that such a state as this is not a better social 
state than that to w^hich we now seem to be tending, for in 
ancient Peru, though production went on under the greatest 
disadvantages, from the want of iron and the domestic ani- 
mals, yet tliere was no such thing as want, and the people 
went to their work with songs. But this it is unnecessary to 
discuss. Socialism in anything approaching such a form, 
modern society cannot successfully attempt. The only force 
that has ever proved competent for it — a strong and definite 
religious faith — is wanting and is daily growing less. We 
have passed out of the socialism of the tribal state, and 
cannot re-enter it again, except by a retrogression that would 
involve anarchy and perhaps barbarism. Our governments, 
as is already plainly evident, would break down in the at- 
tempt. Instead of an intelligent award of duties and 
earnings, we should have a Roman distribution of Sicilian 
corn, and the demagogue would soon become the Imperator. 

The idea of socialism is grand and noble ; and it is, I am 
convinced, possible of realization, but such a state of society 
cannot be manufactured — it must grow. Society is an 
organism, not a machine. It can only live by the individual 



232 THE REMEDY, 

life of its parts. And in the free and natural development of 
all the parts will be secured the harmony of the whole. All 
that is necessary to social regeneration is included in the 
motto of those Russian patriots sometimes called Nihilists — ■ 
" Land and Liberty !" 

VI. — From a More General Distribiction of Land. 

There is a rapidly growing feeling that the tenure of land 
is in some manner connected with the social distress which 
manifests itself in the most progressive countries ; but this 
feeling as yet mostly shows itself in propositions which look 
to the more general division of landed property — in England, 
free trade in land, tenant right, or the equal partition of landed 
estates among heirs ; in the United States, restrictions upon 
the size of individual holdings. It has been also proposed in 
England that the state should buy out the landlords, and in 
the United States that grants of money should be made to en- 
able the settlements of colonies upon public lands. The for- 
mer proposition let us pass for the present ; the latter, so far 
as its distinctive feature is concerned, falls into the category 
of the measures considered in the last section. It needs no 
argument to show to what abuses and demoralization grants 
of public money or credit would lead. 

How what the English writers call " free trade in land " 
— the removal of duties and restrictions upon conveyances — 
could facilitate the division of ownership in agricultural land, 
I cannot see, though it might to some extent have that effect 
as regards town property. The removal of restrictions upon 
buying and selling would merely permit the ownership of 
land to more quickly assume the form to which it tends. Now, 
that the tendency in Great Britain is to concentration is shown 
by the fact that, in spite of the difficulties interposed by the 
cost of transfer, land ownership has been and is steadily con- 
centrating there, and that this tendency is a general one is 
shown by the fact that the same process of concentration is 
observable in the United States. 

I say this unhesitatingly in regard to the United States, 
although statistical tables are sometimes quoted to show a 
different tendency. But how, in such a country as the United 
States, the ownership of land may be really concentrating, 
while census tables show rather a diminution in the average 
size of holdings, is readily seen. As land is brought into use, 
and, with the growth of population, passes from a lower to a 
higher or intenser use, the size of holdings tends to diminish 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDII'^. 233 

A small stock range would be a large farm, a smal] farm 
would be a large orchard, vineyard, nursery, or vegetable 
garden, and a patch of land which would be small even for 
these purposes would make a very large city property. Thus, 
the growth of population, which puts land to higher or inten- 
ser uses, tends naturally to reduce the size of holdings, by a 
process very marked in new countries ; but with this may go 
on a tendency to the concentration of land ownership, which, 
though not revealed by tables which show the average size of 
holdings, is just as clearly seen. Average holdings of one 
acre in a city may show a much greater concentration of land 
ownership than average holdings of 640 acres in a newly set- 
tled township. I allude to this to show the fallacy in the de- 
ductions drawn from the tables which are frequently paraded 
in the United States to show that land monopoly is an evil 
that will cure itself. On the contrary, it is obvious that the 
proportion of land owners to the whole population is constantly 
decreasing. * 

And that there is in the United States, as there is in Great 
Britain, a strong tendency to the concentration of land owner- 
ship in agriculture is clearly seen. As, in England and 
Ireland, small farms are being thrown into larger ones, so in 
New England, according to the reports of the Massachusetts 
Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the size of farms increasing. 
This tendency is even more clearly noticeable in the newer 
States and Territories. Only a few years ago a farm of 320 
acres would, under the system of agriculture prevailing in the 
northern parts of the Union, have anywhere been a large one, 
probably as much as one man could cultivate to advantage. 
In California now there are farms (not cattle ranges) of five, 
ten, twenty, forty and sixty thousand acres, while the model 
farm of Dakota embraces 100,000 acres. The reason is ob- 
vious. It is the application of machinery to agriculture and 
the general tendency to production on a large scale. The 
same tendency which substitutes the factory, with its army of 
operatives, for many independent hand-loom weavers, is be- 
ginning to exhibit itself in agriculture. 

Now, the existence of this tendency shows two things : 
first, that any measures which merely permit or facilitate the 
greater subdivision of land would be inoperative ; and, 
second, that any measures which would compel it would have 
a tendency to check production. If land in large bodies can 
be cultivated more cheaply than land in small bodies, to 
restrict ownership to small bodies will reduce the aggregate 



?.y. 



THE REMEDY. 



production of wealth, and, in so far as such restrictions are 
imposed and take effect, will they tend to diminish the 
general productiveness of labor and capital. 

The effort therefore, to secure a fairer division of wealth 
by such restrictions is liable to the drawback of lessening the 
amount to be divided. The device is like that of the mon- 
key, who, dividing the cheese between the cats, equalized 
matters by taking a bite of the biggest piece. 

But there is not merely this objection, which weighs 
against every proposition to restrict the ownership of land, 
with a force that increases with the efficiency of the pro- 
posed measure. There is the further and fatal objection 
that restriction will not secure the end which is alone worth 
aiming at — a fair division of the produce. It will not reduce 
rent, and therefore cannot increase wages. It may make the 
comfortable classes larger, but will not improve the condition 
of those in the lowest class. 

If what is known as tlie Ulster tenant right were extended 
to the whole of Great Britain, it would be but to carve out ol 
the estate of the landlord an estate for the tenant. The con- 
dition of the laborer would not be a whit improved. If land- 
lords were prohibited from asking an increase of rent from 
their tenants and from ejecting a tenant so long as the fixed 
rent was paid, the body of the producers would gain nothing. 
Economic rent would still increase, and would still steadily 
lessen the proportion of the produce going to labor and 
capital. The only difference would be that the tenants of 
the first landlords, who would become landlords in their turn, 
would profit by the increase. 

If by a restriction upon the amount of land any one 
Individual might hold, by the regulation of devises and suc- 
cessions, or by cumulative taxation, the few thousand land 
holders of Great Britain should be increased by two or three 
million, these two or three million people would be gainers. 
But the rest of the population would gain nothing. They 
would have no more share in the advantages of land owner- 
ship than before. And if, what is manifestly impossible, a 
fair distribution of the land were made among the whole 
population, giving to each his equal share, and laws enacted 
which would interpose a barrier to the tendency to concentra- 
tion by forbidding the holding by any one of more than the 
fixed amount, what would become of the increase of popula- 
tion ? 

Just what may be accomplished by the greater division of 



INEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED REMEDIES. 235 

land may be seen in those districts of France and Belgium 
where minute division prevails. That such a division of land 
is on the whole much better, and that it gives a far more 
stable basis to the State than that which prevails in England, 
there can be no doubt. But that it does not make wages any 
higher or improve the condition of the class who have only 
their labor, is equally clear. These French and Belgian 
peasants practice a rigid economy unknown to any of the 
English speaking peoples. And if such striking symptoms 
of the povert}^ and distress of the lowest class are not appar- 
ent as on the other side of the channel, it must, I think, be 
attributed, not only to this fact, but to another fact, which 
accounts for the continuance of the minute division of the 
land — that material progress has not been so rapid. 

Neither has population increased with the same rapidity (on 
the contrary it has been nearly stationary), nor have im- 
provements in the modes of production been so great. 
Nevertheless, M. de Lavele3''e, all of whose prepossessions 
are in favor of small holdings, and whose testimony will 
therefore carry more weight than that of English observers, 
who may be supposed to harbor a prejudice for the system 
of their own country, states in his paper on the Land Systems 
of Belgium and Holland, printed by the Cobden Club, that 
the condition of the laborer is worse under this system of the 
minute division of land than it is in England; while the 
tenant farmers— for tenancy largely prevails even where the 
viorcellfj^eiit is greatest — are rack-rented with a mercilessness 
unknown in England, and even in Ireland, and the franchise 
" so far from raising them in the social scale, is but a source 
of mortification and humiliation to them, for they are forced 
to vote according to the dictates of the landlord instead of 
following the dictates of their own inclinations and convic- 
tions." 

But while the subdivision of land can thus do nothing to 
cure the evils of land monopolv, while it can have no effect 
in raising wages or in improving the condition of the lowest 
classes, its tendency is to prevent the adoption or even advo- 
cacy of more thorough going measures, and to strengthen the 
existing unjust system by interesting a larger number in its 
maintenance. M, de Laveleye, m concluding the paper from 
which I have quoted, urges the greater division of land as 
the surest means of securing the great land owners of 
England from something far more radical. Although in the 
districts where land is so miautely divided, the condition of 



230 THE REMEDY 

the laborer is, he states, the worst in Europe and the renting 
farmer is much more ground down by his landlord than the 
Irish tenant, yet " feelings hostile to social order," M. de 
Laveleye goes on to say, " do not manifest themselves," 
because . — 

'VThe '.enant, although ground down by the constant rise of rents, lives among 
his equals, peasants like himself who have tenants whom they use just as the large 
land holder does his. His father, his brother, perhaps the man himself, possesses 
something like an acre of land, which he lets at as high a rent as he can get. In 
the public house peasant proprietors will boast of the high rents they get for their 
lands, just as they might boast of having sold their pigs or potatoes very dear. 
Letting at as high a rent as possible comes thus to seem to him to be quite a matter 
of course, and he never dreams of iinding fault with either the land owners as a 
class or with property in land. His mind is not likely to dwell on the notion of a 
caste of domineering landlords, of " bloodthirsty tyrants," fattening on the sweat 
of impoverished tenants and doing no w^ork themselves ; for those who drive the 
hardest bargains are not the great land owners but his own fellows. Thus, the 
distribution of a number of small properties among the peasantry forms a kind of 
rampart and safeguard for the holders of large estates, and peasant property may 
without exaggeration be called the lightning conductor that averts from society 
dangers which might otherwise lead to violent catastrophes. 

" The concentration of land in large estates among a small number of families is 
a sort of provocation of leveling legislation. The position of England, so enviable 
in many respects, seems to me to be in this respect full of danger for the future." 

To me, for the very same reason that M. de Laveleye ex- 
presses, the position of England seems full of hope. 

Let us abandon all attempt to get rid of the evils of land 
monopoly by restricting land ownership. An equal distri- 
bution of land is impossible, and anything short of that 
would only be a mitigation not a cure, and a mitigation that 
would prevent the adoption of a cure. Nor is any remedy 
worth considering that does not fall in with the natural 
direction of social development, and swim, so to speak, with 
the current of the times. That concentration is the order of 
development there can be no mistaking — the concentration 
of people in large cities, the concentration of handicrafts in 
large factories, the concentration of transportation by rail- 
road and steamship lines, and of agricultural operations in 
large fields. The most trivial businesses . are being concen- 
trated in the same way — errands are run and carpet sacks 
are carried by corporations, AH the currents of the time run 
to concentration. To successfully resist it we must throttle 
steam and discharge electricity from human service. 



CHAPTER IL 



THE TRUE REMEDY. 



We have traced the unequal distribution of weafth which is 
the curse and menace of modern civilization to the institution 



THE TRUE REMEDY, 237 

of private property in land. We have seen that as long as 
this institution exists no increase in productive power 'can 
permanently benefit the masses ; but, on the contrary, must 
tend to still further depress their condition. We have ex- 
amined all the remedies, short of the abolition of private 
property in land, which are currently relied on or joroposed 
for the relief of poverty and the better distribution of wealth, 
and have found them all inefficacious or impracticable. 

There is but one way to remove an evil — and that is, to re- 
move its cause. Poverty deepens as wealth increases, and 
wages are forced down while productive power grows, be- 
cause land, which is the source of all wealth and the field of 
all labor, is monopolized. To extirpate poverty, to make 
wages what justice commands they should be, the full earnings of 
the laborer, we must therefore substitute for the individual owner- 
ship of land a common ownership. Nothing else will go to 
the cause of the evil — in nothing else is there the slightest hope. 

This, then, is the remedy for the unjust and unequal dis- 
tribution of wealth apparent in modern civilization, and for 
all the evils which flow from it : 

We must make land coinmon property. 

We have reached this conclusion by an examination in 
which every step has been proved and secured. In the chain 
of reasoning no link is wanting and no link is weak. 
Deduction and induction have brought us to the same truth 
— that the unequal ownership of land necessitates the unequal 
distribution of wealth. And as in the nature of things 
unequal ownership of land is inseparable from the recognition 
of individual property in land, it necessarily follows that the 
only remedy for the unjust distribution of wealth is in making 
land common property. 

But this is a truth which, in the present state of society, 
will arouse the most bitter antagonism, and must fight its way 
inch by inch. It will be necessary, therefore, to meet the 
objections of those who, even when driven to admit this truth, 
will declare that it cannot be ]:)ractically applied. 

In doing this we shall bring our previous reasoning to a 
new and crucial test. Just as we try addition by subtraction 
and multiplication by division, so may we, by testing the 
suffi.ciency of the remedy, prove the correctness of our conclu- 
sions as to the cause of the evil. 

The laws of the universe are harmonious. And if the 



238 THE REMEDY. 

remedy to which we have been led is the true one, it must be 
consistent with justice ; it must be practicable of application ; 
it must accord with the tendencies of social development, and 
must harmonize with other reforms. 

All this I propose to show. I propose to meet all practical 
objections which can be raised, and to show that this simple 
measure is not only easy of application ; but that it is a 
sufficient remedy for all the evils which, as modern progress 
goes on, arise from the greater and greater inequality in the 
distribution of wealth — that it will substitute equality for 
inequality, plenty for want, justice for injustice, social strength 
for social weakness, and will open the way to grander and 
nobler advances of civilization. 

I thus propose to show that the laws of the universe do 
not deny the natural aspirations of the human heart ; that 
the progress of society might be, and, if it is to continue, 
must be, toward equality, not toward inequality ; and that the 
economic harmonies prove the truth perceived by the Stoic 
Emperor — 

" We are made for co-operation — like feet., like hands., like eyo 
lidSf like the rows of the upper and lower teeih^ 



BOOK VII. 

JU3TICE OK THE REMEDY 



Justice IS a relation of congruity which really subsists between two things. 
This relation is always the same, whatever being considers it, whether it be God, 
or an angel, or lastly a man. — Montesquieu 



CHAPTER I. 

THE INJUSTICE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND. 

When it is proposed to abolish private property in land 
the first question that will arise is that of justice. Though 
often warped by habit, superstition, and selfishness into the 
most distorted forms, the sentiment of justice is yet funda- 
mental to the human mind, and whatever dispute arouses the 
passions of men, the conflict is sure to rage, not so much as 
to the question " Is it wise ? " as to the question " Is it right ? " 

This tendency of popular discussions to take an ethical 
form has a cause. It springs from a law of the human mind ; 
it rests upon a vague and instinctive recognition of what is 
probably the deepest truth we can grasp. That alone is wise 
which is just . that alone is enduring which is right. In the 
narrow scale of individual actions and individual life this 
truth maybe often obscured, but in the wider field of national 
life it everywhere stands out. 

I bow to this arbitrament, and accept this test. If our in- 
quiry into the cause which makes low wages and pauperism 
the accompaniments of material progress has led us to a 
correct conclusion, it will bear translation from terms of po- 
litical economy into terms of ethics, and as the source of 
social evils show a wrong. If it will not do this, it is dis- 
proved. If it will do this, it is proved by the final decision 
If private property in land be just, then is the remedy I pro^ 
pose a false one ; if, on the contrary, private property in land 
be unjust, then is this :emedy the true one. 



240 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

What constitutes the rightful basis of property ? What is 
it that enables a man to justl};' sa)^ of a thing, " It is mine 1 " 
From what springs the sentiment which acknowledges his 
exclusive right as against all the world ? Is it not, primarily, 
the right of a man to himself, to the use of his own powers, 
to the enjoyment of the fruits of his own exertions ? Is it 
not this individual right, which springs from and is testified 
to by the natural facts of individual organization — the fact 
that each particular pair of hands obey a particular brain and 
are related to a particular stomach ; the fact that each man 
is a definite, coherent, independent whole — which alone jus- 
tifies individual ownership ? As a man belongs to himself, so 
his labor when put in concrete form belongs to him. 

And for this reason, that which a rnan makes or produces 
is his own, as against all the w^orld- — to enjoy or to destroy, 
to use, to exchange, or to give. No one else can rightfully 
claim it, and his exclusive right to it involves no wrong to any 
one else. Thus there is to everything produced by human 
exertion a clear and indisputable title to exclusive possession 
and enjoyment, which is perfectly consistent with justice, as 
it descends from the original producer, in whom it vested by 
natural law. The pen with which I am writing is justly mine. 
No other human being can rightfully lay claim to it, for in 
me is the title of the producers who made it. It has become 
mine, because transferred to me by the stationer, to whom it 
was transferred by the importer, who obtained the exclusive 
right to it by transfer from the manufacturer, in whom, by the 
same process of "purchase, vested the rights of those who dug 
the material from the ground and shaped it into a pen. Thus, 
my exclusive right of ownership in the pen springs from the 
natural right of the individual to the use of his own faculties. 

Now, this is not only the original source from which all 
ideas of exclusive ownership arise — as is evident from the 
natural tendency of the mind to revert to it when the idea of 
exclusive ownership is questioned, and the manner in which 
social relations develop— but it is necessarily the only source. 
There can be to the ownership of anything no rightful title 
which is not derived from the title of the producer and does 
not rest upon the natural right of the man to himself. There 
can be no other rightful title, because (ist) there is no othei? 
natural right from which any other title can be derived, and 
(2d) because the recognition of any other title is inconsistent 
with and destructive of this. 

For (ist) what other right exists from which the right to the 



INTUSTICE OFPRIVA TE PROPERTY IN LAND. 2 11 

exclusive possession of anything can be derived, save the 
right of a man to himself ? With what other power is man by 
nature clothed save the power of exerting his own faculties ? 
"low can he in any other way act upon or affect material things 
<^r other men ? Paralyze the moter nerves, and your man has no 
xnore external influence or power than a log or stone. From 
what else, then, can the right of possessing and controlling 
things be derived ? If it spring not from man himself, from 
what can it spring ? Nature acknowledges no ownership 
or control in man save as the result of exertion. In no 
other way can her treasures be drawn forth, her powers 
directed, or her forces utilized or controlled. She makes 
no discriminations among men, but is to all absolutely 
impartial. She knows no distinction between master and 
slave, king and subject, saint and sinner. All men to her 
stand upon an equal footing and have equal rights. She 
recognizes no claim but that of labor, and recognizes that 
without respect to the claimant. If a pirate spread his 
sails, the wind will fill them as well as it will fill those of 
a peaceful merchantman or missionary bark ; if a king and a 
common man be thrown overboard, neither can keep his head 
above the water except by swimming ; birds will not come to 
be shot by the proprietor of the soil any quicker than they 
will come to be shot by the poacher ; fish will bite or will not 
bite at a hook in utter disregard as to whether it is offered 
them by a good little boy who goes to Sunday school, or a 
bad little boy who plays truant ; grain will grow only as the 
ground is prepared and the seed is sown ; it is only at the call 
of labor that ore can be raised from the mine ; the sun shines 
and the rain falls, alike upon just and unjust. The laws of 
nature are the decrees of the Creator. There is written in 
them no recognition of any right save that of labor ; and in 
them is written broadly and clearly the equal right of all men 
to the use and enjoyment of nature ; to apply to her by their 
exertions, and to receive and possess her reward. Hence, as 
nature gives only to labor, the exertion of labor in production 
is the only title to exclusive possession. 

2d. This right of ownership that springs from labor ex- 
cludes the possibility of any other right of ownership. If a 
man be rightfully entitled to the produce of his labor, then no 
one can be rightfully entitled to the ownership of anything 
which is not the produce of his labor, or the labor of some 
one else from whom the right has passed to him. If produc- 
tion give to the producer the right to exclusive possession 
16 



J42 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

and enjoyment, there can rightfully be no exclusive possession 
and enjoyment of anything not the production of labor, and 
the recognition of private property in land is wrong. For the 
right to the produce of labor cannot be enjoyed without the 
right to the free use of the opportunities offered by nature, 
and to admit the right of property in these is to deny the 
right of property in the produce of labor. When non- 
producers can claim as rent a portion of the wealth created 
by producers, the right of the producers to tlie fruits of their 
labor is to that extent denied. 

There is no escape from this position. To afi&rm that a 
man can rightfully claim exclusive ownership in his own labor, 
when embodied in material things, is to deny that any one 
can rightfully claim exclusive ownership in land. To afhrm 
the rightfulness of property in land, is to afhrm a claim which 
"'■^ no warrant in nature, as against a claim founded in the 
organization of man and the laws of the material universe. 

What most prevents the realization of the injustice of 
private property in land is the habit of including all the 
things that are made the subject of ownership in one category, 
as property, or, if any distinction is made, drawing the line, 
according to the unphilosophical distinction of the lawyers., 
between personal property and real estate, or things movable 
and things immovable. The real and natural distinction !r>. 
between things which are the produce of labor and things 
which are the gratuitous offerings of nature ; or, to adopt 
the terms of political economy, between wealth and land. 

These two classes of things are in essence and relations 
widely different, and to class them together as property is to 
confuse all thought when we CG*ne to consider the justice or 
the injustice, the right or the wrong of property. 

A house and the lot on which it stands are alike property, 
as being the subject of ownership, and are alike classed by 
the lawyers as real estate. Yet in nature and relations they 
differ widely. The one is produced by human labor, and 
belongs to the class in political economy styled wealth. The 
other is a part of nature, and belongs to the class in political 
economy styled land. 

The essential character of the one class of things is that 
they embody labor, are brought into being by human exertion, 
their existence or non-existence, their increase or diminution 
depending on man. The essential character of the other class 
of things is that they do not embody labor, and exist irrespec- 
tive of human exertion and irrespective^ of man ; they are the 



INJUSTICE OF PRIVA TE PROPERTY IN LAND. 243 

field or environment in which man finds himself; the store- 
house from which his needs must be supplied, the raw material 
upon which, and the forces with which, his labor alone can 
act. 

The moment this distinction is realized, that moment is it 
seen that the sanction which natural justice gives to one 
species of property is denied to the other ; that the rightful- 
ness which attaches to individual property in the produce of 
labor implies the wrongfulness of individual property in land ; 
that, whereas the recognition of the one places all men upon 
equal terms, securing to each the due reward of his labor, 
the recognition of the other is the denial of the equal rights 
of men, permitting those who do not labor to take the 
natural reward of those who do. 

Whatever may be said for the institution of private prop- 
erty in land, it is therefore plain that it cannot be defended 
on the score of justice. 

The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear 
as their equal right to breathe the air — it is a right proclaimed 
by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that 
some men have a right to be in this world and others no 
right. 

If we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, 
we are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of His 
bounty — with an equal right to the use of all that nature so 
impartially offers.* This is a right which is natural and 
inalienable ; it is a right which vests in every human being 
as he enters the world, and which during his continuance in 
the world can be limited only by the equal rights of others. 
There is in nature no such thing as a fee simple in land. 
There is on earth no power which can rightfully make a grant 
of exclusive ownership in land. If all existing men were to 

* In saying that private property in land can, in the ultimate analysis, only be 
justified on the theory that some men have a better right to existence than others, I 
am only stating what the advocates of the existing system have themselves 
perceived. What gave to Malthus his popularity among the ruling classes — what 
caused his illogical book to be received as a new revelation, induced sovereigns to 
send him decorations, and the meanest rich man in England to propose to give him 
a living was the fact that he furnished a plausible reason for the assumption that 
some have a better right to existence than others — an assumption which is necessary 
for the justification of private property in land, and which Malthus clearly states in 
the declaration that the tendency of population is constantly to bring into 
the v,rorld human beings for whom nature refuses to provide, and who con-, 
sequently " have not the slightest right to any share in the existing store of the 
necessaries of life;" whom she tells as interlopers to begone, "and does not 
hesitate to extort by force obedience to her mandates ;" employing for her purpose 
"hunger and pestilence, war and crime, mortality and neglect of infantine life, 
prostitution and syphillis." And to-day this Malthusian doctrine is the ultimate 
defense upon which those who justify private property in land fall back. In ao 
other way can it be logically defended. 



244 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

unite to grant away their equal rights, they could not grant 
away the right of those who follow them. For what are we 
but tenants for a day? Have we made the earth, that we 
should determine the rights of those who after us shall 
tenant it in their turn ? The Almight}^, who created the earth 
for man and man for the earth, has entailed it upon all I 
the generations of the children of men by a decree written 
upon the constitution of all things — a decree which no human 
action can bar and no prescription determine. Let the 
parchments be ever so many, or possession ever so long, 
natural justice can recognize no right in one man to the 
possession and enjoyment of land that is not equally the 
right of all his fellows. Though his titles have been acqui- 
esced in by generation after generation, to the landed estates 
of the Duke of Westminster the poorest child that is born in 
London to-day has as much right as his eldest son.* Though 
the sovereign people of the State of New York consent to the 
landed possessions of the Astors, the jDuniest infant that 
comes wailing into the world in the squalidest room of the 
most miserable tenement house, becomes at that moment 
seized of an equal right with the millionaires. And it is 
robbed if the right is denied. 

Our previous conclusions, irresistible in themselves, thus 
stand approved by the highest and final test. Translated 
from terms of political economy into terms of ethics they 
show a wrong as the source of the evils which increase as 
material progress goes on. 

The masses of men, who in the midst of abundance suffer 
want ; who, clothed with political freedom, are condemned to 
the wages of slavery ; to whose toil labor-saving inventions 
bring no relief, but rather seem to rob them of a privilege, 
instinctively feel that " there is something wrong." And they 
are right. 

The wide-spreading social evils which everywhere oppress 
men amid an advancing civilization, spring from a great pri- 
mary wrong — the appropriation, as the exclusive property of 
some men, of the land on v/hich and from which all must 

* This natural and inalienable rigrit to the equal use and enjoyment of land is so 
apparent that it has been recognized by men wherever force or habit has not blunted 
first perceptions. To give but one instance : The white settlers of New Zealand 
found themselves unable to get from the Maoris what the latter considered a 
complete title to land, because, although a whole tribe might have consented to a 
sale, they would still claim with every new child born among them an additional 
payment on the ground that they had only parted with their own rights, and could 
not sell those of the unborn. The government was obliged to step in and settle the 
matter by buying land for a tribal annuity, in which every child that is born 
acquires a share. 



INJUSTICE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND. 245 

live. From this fundamental injustice flow all the injustices 
which distort and endanger modern development, which con- 
demn the producer of wealth to poverty and pamper the non- 
producer in luxury, which rear the tenement house with the 
palace, plant the brothel behind the church, and compel us to 
build prisons as we open new schools. 

There is nothing strange or inexplicable in the phenomena 
that are now perplexing the world. It is not that material 
progress is not in itself a good ; it is not that nature has called 
into being children for whom she has failed to provide ; it is 
not that the Creator has left on natural laws a taint of injus- 
tice at which even the human mind revolts, that material 
progress brings such bitter fruits. That amid our highest 
civilization men faint and die with want is not due to the nig- 
gardliness of nature, but to the injustice of man. Vice and 
misery, poverty and pauperism, are not the legitimate results 
of increase of population and industrial development ; they 
only follow increase of population and industrial develop 
ment because land is treated as private property — they are 
the direct and necessary results of the violation of the su- 
preme law of justice, involved in giving to some men the 
exclusive possession of that which nature provides for all 
men. 

The recognition of individual proprietorship of land is the 
denial of the natural rights of other individuals — it is a 
wrong which must show itself in the inequitable division of 
wealth. For as labor cannot produce without the use of land, 
the denial of the equal right to the use of land is necessarily 
the denial of the right of labor to its own produce. If one 
man can command tlie land upon which others must labor, he 
can appropriate the produce of their labor as the price of his 
permission to labor. The fundamental law of nature, that 
her enjoyment by man shall be consequent upon his exertion, 
is thus violated. The one receives without producing; the 
others produce without receiving. The one is unjustly en- 
riched ; the others are robbed. To this fundamental wrong 
we have traced the unjust distribution of wealth which is 
separating modern society into the very rich and the very 
poor. It is the continuous increase of rent — the price that 
labor is compelled to pay for the use of land, which strips 
the many of the wealth they justly earn, to pile it up in the 
hands of the few, who do nothing to earn it. 

Why should they who suffer from this injustice hesitate for 
one moment to sweep it away 1 Who are the land holders 



246 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY 

that they should thus be permitted to reap where they ha\e 
not sown ? 

Consider for a moment the utter absurdity of the titles by 
which we permit to be gravely passed from John Doe to 
Richard Roe the right to exclusively possess the earth, giving 
absolute dominion as against all others. In California our 
land titles go back to the Supreme Government of Mexico, 
who took from the Spanish King, who took from the Pope, 
when he by a stroke of the pen divided lands yet to be dis- 
covered between the Spanish or Portuguese — or if you 
please they rest upon conquest. In the Eastern States they 
go back to treaties with Indians and grants from English 
Kings ; in Louisiana to the Government of I ranee; in Florida 
to the Government of Spain ; while in England they go back 
to the Norman conquerors. Everywhere, not to a right 
which obliges, but to a force which compels. And when 
a title rests but on force, no comi3laint can be made when 
force annuls it. Whenever the people, having the power, 
choose to annul those titles, no objection can be made in the 
name of justice. There have existed men who had the 
power to hold or to give exclusive possession of portions of 
the earth's surface, but when and where did there exist the 
human being who had the right ? 

The right to exclusive ownership of anything of human 
production is clear. No matter how many the hands through 
which it has passed, there was at the beginning of the line, 
human labor — some one who having procured or produced it 
by his exertions, had to it a clear title as against all the rest 
of mankind, and which could justly pass from one to another 
by sale or gift. But at the end of what string of convey- 
ances or grants can be shov;n or supposed a like litle to any 
part of the material universe ? To improvements such an 
original title can be shown • but it is a title only to the 
improvements, and not to the land itself. If I clear a forest, 
drain a swamp, or fill a morass, all I can justly claim is the 
value given by these exertions. They give me no right to the 
land itself, no claim other than to my equal share with every 
other member of the communitv in the value which is added 
to it by the grov/th of the community. 

But it will be said: There are improvements which in 
time become indistinguishable from the land itself ! Very 
well ; then the title to the improvements becomes blended 
with the title to the land ; the individual right is lost in the 
common right. It is the greater that swallows up the lesS; 



INJUSTICE OF PRIVA TE PROPERTY IN LAND. 247 

not the less that swallows up the greater. Nature does not 
proceed from man, but man from nature, and it is into the 
bosom of nature that he and all his works must return 
again. 

Yet, it will be said : As every man has a right to the use 
% ad enjoyment of nature, the man who is using land must 
be permitted the exclusive right to its use in order that he 
may get the full benefit of his labor. But there is no difh- 
culty in determining where the individual right ends and the 
common right begins. A delicate and exact test is supplied 
by value, and with its aid there is no difficulty, no matter how 
dense population may become, in determining and securing 
the exact rights of each, the equal rights of all. The value 
of land, as we have seen, is the price of monopoly. It is 
not the absolute, but the relative, capability of land that 
determines its value. No matter what may be its intrinsic 
qualities, land that is no better than other land which may 
be had for the using, can have no value. And the value of 
land always measures the difference between it and the best 
land that may be had for the using. Thus, the value of land 
expresses in exact and tangible form the right of the com- 
munity in land held by an individual ; and rent expresses the 
exact amount which the individual should pay to the com- 
*".unity to satisfy the equal rights of all *" .her members of 
•Jie community. Thus, if we concede to priority of possession 
the undisturbed use of land, confiscating rent for the benefit 
cf i-he communit)^, we reconcile the fixity of tenure which is 
necessary for improvement v/ith a full and complete recogni- 
tion of the equal rights of all to the use of land. 

As for the deduction of a complete and exclusive individ- 
ual right to land from priority of occupation, that is, if 
possible, the most absurd ground on which land ownership 
can be defended. Priority of occupation give exclusive and 
perpetual title to the surface of a globe on which, in the order 
of nature, countless generations succeed each other ! Had 
the men of the last generation any better right to the use of 
this world than we of this ? or the men of a hundred years 
ago ? or of a thousand years ago ? Had the mound-builders, 
vr the cave-dwellers, the contemporaries of the mastodon and 
Jie three-toed horse, or the generations still further back, 
who, in dim seons that we can only think of as geologic 
periods, followed each other on the earth we now tenant for 
our little day ? 

Has the first comer at a banquet the right to turn back all 



24b JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY 

the chairs and claim that none of the other guests shall par- 
take of the food provided, except as they make terms with 
him ? Does the first man who presents a ticket at the door 
of a theatre and passes in, acquire by his priority the right to 
shut tlie doors and have the performance go on for him 
alone ? Does the first passenger who enters a railroad car 
obtain the right to scatter his baggage over all the seats and 
compel the passengers who come in after him to stand up ? 

The cases are j^erfectly analogous. We arrive and we 
depart, guests at a banquet continually spread, spectators and 
participants in an entertainment where there is room for all 
who come ; passengers from station to station, on an orb that 
whirls through space — our rights to take and possess cannot 
be exclusive ; they must be bounded everywhere by the equal 
rights of others. Just as the passenger in a railroad car may 
spread himself and his baggage over as many seats as he 
pleases, until other passengers come in, so may a settler take 
and use as much land as he chooses, until it is needed by others 
— a fact which is shown by the land acquiring a value — when 
his right must be curtailed by the equal rights of the others, 
and no priority of appropriation can give a right which will bar 
these equal rights of others. If this were not the case, then 
by priority of "appropriation one man could acquire and could 
transmit to whom he pleased, not merely the exclusive right 
to 1 60 acres, or to 640 acres, but to a whole township, a 
whole State, a whole continent. 

And to this manifest absurdity does the recognition of indi- 
vidual right to land come when carried to its ultimate — that 
any one human being, could he concentrate in himself the 
individual rights to the land of any country, could expel 
therefrom all the rest of its inhabitants ; and could he thus 
concentrate the individual rights to the whole surface of the 
globe, he alone of all the teeming population of the earth 
would have the right to live. 

And what upon this supposition would occur is, upon a 
smaller scale, realized in actual fact. The territorial lords of 
Great Britain, to whom grants of land have given the " white 
parasols and elephants mad with pride," have over and over 
again expelled from large districts the native population, 
whose ancestors had lived on the land from immemorial 
times — driven them off to emigrate, to become paupers, or to 
starve. And on uncultivated tracts of land in the new State 
of California may be seen the blackened chimneys of homes 
from which settlers Jiave been driven by force of laws whicl? 



ENS LA VEMENT OF LABORERS. 249 

ignore natural right, and great stretches of land which might 
be populous are desolate, because the recognition of exclusive 
ownership has put it in the power of one human creature to 
forbid his fellows from using it. The comparative handful of 
proprieters who own the surface of the British Islands Vv^ould 
be only doing what the English law gives them full power to 
do, and what many of them have done on a smaller scale 
already, were they to exclude the millions of British people 
from their native islands. And such an exclusion, by which 
a few hundred thousand should at will banish thirty million 
people from their native country, while it would be more 
striking, would not be a whit more repugnant to natural right 
than the spectacle now presented, of the vast body of the 
British people being compelled to pay such enormous sums to 
a few of their number for the privilege of being permitted to 
live upon and use the land which they so fondly call their 
own ; which is endeared to them by memories so tender and 
so glorious, and for which they are held in duty bound, if 
need be, to spill their blood and lay down their lives. 

I only allude to the British Islands, because, land owner- 
ship being more concentrated there, they afford a more 
striking illustration of what private property in land necessarily 
involves. " To whomsoever the soil at any time belongs, to 
him belongs the fruits of it," is a truth that becomes more 
and more apparent as population becomes denser and 
invention and improvement add to productive power ; but it 
is everywhere a truth — as much in our new States, as in the 
British Islands or by the banks of the Indus. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE ENSLAVEMENT OF LABORERS THE ULTIMATE RESULT OF 
PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND. 

If chattel slavery be unjust, then is private property in 
land unjust. 

For, let the circumstances be what they may — the owner- 
ship of land will always give the ownership of men, to 
a degree measured by the necessity (real or artificial) for 
the use of land. This is but a statement in different form 
of the law of rent. 

And when that necessity is absolute — when starvation is 



250 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY, 

the alternative to the use of land, then does the ownersliip of 
men involved in the ownership of land become absolute. 

Place one hundred men on an island from which there is 
no escape, n.nd whether you make one of these men the 
absolute own-^r of the other ninety-nine, or the absolute 
owner of the soil of the island, will make no difference eithev 
to him or to them. 

In the one case, as the other, the one will be the absolute 
master of the ninety-nine — his power extending even to life 
and death, for simply to refuse them permission to live upon 
the island would be to force them into the sea. 

Upon a larger scale, and through more complex relations, 
the same cause must operate in the same way and to the 
same end — the ultimate result, the enslavement of laborers, 
becoming apparent just as the pressure increases which 
compels them to live on and from land which is treated as the 
exclusive property of others. Take a country in which the 
soil is divided among a number of proprietors, instead of 
being in the hands of one, and in which, as in modern 
production, the capitalist has been specialized from the 
laborer, and manufactures and exchange, in all their many 
branches, have been separated from agriculture. Though 
less direct and obvious, the relations between the owners of 
the soil and the laborers will, with increase of population 
and the improvement of the arts, tend to the same absolute 
mastery on the one hand, and the same abject helplessness on 
the other, as in the case of the island we have supposed. Rent 
will advance, while wages will fall. Of the aggregate produce, 
the land owner will get a constantly increasing, the laborer a 
constantly diminishing share. Just as removal to cheaper 
land becomes difficult or impossible, laborers, no matter what 
they produce, will be reduced to a bare living, and the free 
competition among them, where land is monopolized, will 
force them to a condition which, though they may be mocked 
wdth the titles and insignia of freedom, will be virtually that 
of slavery. 

There is nothing strange in the fact that, in spite of the 
enormous increase in productive power which this century has 
witnessed, and which is still going on, the wages of labor in 
the lower and wider strata of industry should everywhere tend 
to the wages of slavery — just enough to keep the laborer in 
working condition. For the ownership of the land on which 
and from which a man must live, is virtually the ownership of 
the man himself, and in acknowledging the right of some in* 



ENSLA VEMENT OF LABORERS. 



251 



dividuals to the exclusive use and enjoyment of the earth, we 
condemn other individuals to slavery as fully and as 
completely as though we had formally made them chat- 
tels. 

In a simpler form of society, where production chiefly con- 
sists in the direct application of labor to the soil, the slavery 
that is the necessary result of according to some the exclusive 
right to the soil fiiom which all must live, is plainly seen in 
helotism, in villainage, in serfdom. 

Chattel slavery originated in the capture of prisoners in war, 
and, though it has existed to some extent in every part of the 
globe, its area has been small, its effects trivial, as compared 
with the forms of slavery which have originated in the appro- 
priation of land. No people as a mass have ever been re- 
duced to chattel slavery to men of their own race, nor yet on 
any large scale has any people ever been reduced to slavery 
of this kind by conquest. The general subjec' "on of the many 
to the few, which we meet with wherever soo. ty has reached 
a certain development, has resulted from the appropriation 
of land as individual property. It is the ownership of the 
soil that everywhere gives the ownership of the men that live 
upon it. It is slavery of this kind to which the enduring 
pyramids and the colossal monuments of Egypt yet bear wit- 
ness, and of the institution of which we have, perhaps, a 
vague tradition in the biblical story of the famine during 
which the Pharaoh purchased up the lands of the people. It 
was slavery of this kind to which, in the twilight of histor}^, the 
conquerors of Greece reduced the original inhabitants of that 
peninsula, transforming them into helots by making them 
pay rent for their lands. It was the growth of the latifiindia^ 
or great landed estates, which transmuted the population of 
ancient Italy, from a race of hardy husbandmen, whose robust 
virtues conquered the world, into a race of cringing bondsmen; 
it was the appropriation of the land as the absolute property 
of their chieftains which gradually turned the descendants ot 
free and equal Gallic, Teutonic and Hunnish warriors into 
colonii and villains, and which changed the independent 
burghers of Sclavonic village communities into the boors of 
Russia and the serfs of Poland ; vdiich instituted the feudal- 
ism of China and Japan, as well as that of Europe, and which 
made the High Chiefs of Polynesia the all but absolute mas- 
ters of their fellows. How it came to pass that the Aryan 
shepherds and warriors who, as comparative philology tells 
uSj descended from the common birth-place of the Indo-Ger- 



2S2 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY, 

manic race into the lowlands of India, were turned into the 
suppliant and cringing Hindoo, the Sanscrit verse which 
I have before quoted gives us a hint. The white para- 
sols and the elephants mad with pride of the Indian Ra- 
jah are the flowers of grants of land. And could we find 
the key to the records of the long-buried civilizations that 
lie entombed in the gigantic ruins of Yucatan and Guate- 
mala, telling at once of the pride of a ruling class and 
the unrequited toil to which the masses were condemned, 
we should read, in all human probability, of a slavery imposed 
upon the great body of the people through the appropriation of 
the land as the property of a few — of another illustration of 
the universal truth that they who possess the land are mas- 
ters of the men who dwell upon it. 

The necessary relation between labor and land, the abso- 
lute power which the ownership of land gives over men who 
cannot live but by using it, explains what is otherwise inex- 
plicable — the growth and persistence of institutions, man- 
ners, and ideas so utterly repugnant to the natural sense of 
liberty and equality. 

When the idea of individual ownership, which so justly 
and naturally attaches to things of human production, is ex- 
tended to land, all the rest is a mere matter of development. 
The strongest and most cunning easily acquire a superior 
share in this species of property, which is to be had, not by 
production, but by appropriation, and in becoming lords of 
the land they become necessarily lords of their fellow-men. 
The ownership of land is the basis of aristocracy. It was 
not nobility that gave land, but the possession of land that 
gave nobility. All the enormous privileges of the nobility 
of medieval Europe flowed from their position as the owners 
of the soil. The simple principle of the ownership of the 
soil produced, on the one side, the lord, on the other, the 
vassal — the one having all rights, the other none. The right 
of the lord to the oil acknowledged and maintained, those 
who lived upoQ it t:ould only do so upon his terms. The 
manners and conditions of the times made those terms in- 
clude services and servitudes, as well as rents in produce oi 
mone)^, but the essential thing that compelled them was the 
ownership of land. This power exists Vv^herever the ov/ner- 
ship of land exists, and can be brought out wherever the 
competition for the use of land is great enough to enable the 
landlord to make his own terms. The English land owner of 
to-day has, in the law which recognizes his exclusive right to 



ENS LA FEME NT 0I< LABORERS. 253 

the land, essentially all the power which his predecessor the 
feudal baron had. He might command rent in services or 
servitudes. He might compel his tenants to dress themselves 
in a particular way, to profess a particular religion, to send 
their children to a particular school, to submit their differ- 
ences to his decision, to fall upon their knees when he spoke to 
ihem, to follow him around dressed in his livery, or to sacri- 
fice to him female honor, if they would prefer these things to 
being driven off his land. He could demand in short any 
terms on which men would still consent to live on his land, 
and the law could not prevent him so long as it did not qual- 
ify his ownership, for compliance with them would assume the 
form of a free contract or voluntarv act. And Eno;lish land- 
lords do exercise such of these powers as in the manners of 
the times they care to. Having shaken off the obligation of 
providing for the defense of the country, they no longer need 
the military service of their tenants, and the possession of 
wealth and power being now shown in other ways than by 
long trains of attendants, they no longer care for personal 
service. But they habitually control the votes of their ten- 
ants, and dictate to them in many little ways. That " right 
reverend father in God," Bishop Lord Plunkett, evicted a num- 
ber of his poor Irish tenants because they would not send 
their children to Protestant Sunday Schools; and to that 
Earl of Leitrim for whom Nemesis tarried so long before she 
sped the bullet of an assassin, even darker crimes are impu- 
ted ; while, at the cold promptings of greed, cottage after 
cottage has been pulled down and family after family forced 
into the roads. The principle that permits this is the same 
principle that in ruder times and a simpler social state en- 
thralled the great masses of the common people and placed 
such a wide gulf between noble and peasant. Where the 
peasant was made a serf, it was simply by forbidding him to 
leave the estate on which he was born, thus artificially pro- 
ducing the condition we supposed on the island. In sparsely 
settled countries this is necessary to produce absolute slavery, 
but where land is fully occupied, competition may produce 
substantially the same conditions. Between the condition of 
the rack-rented Irish peasant and the Russian serf, the advan- 
tage was in many things on the side of the serf. The serf 
did not starve. 

Now, as I think I have conclusively proved, it is the same 
cause which has in every age degraded and enslaved the 
laboring masses, that is working in the civilized world to-day. 



254 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

Personal liberty — that is to say, the Hberty to move about 
— is everywhere conceded, while of political and legal in- 
equality there are in the United States no vestiges, and in the 
most backward civilized countries but few. But the great 
cause of inequality remains, and is manifesting itself in the 
unequal distribution of wealth. The essence of slavery is 
that it takes from the laborer all he produces save enough to 
support an animal existence, and to this minimum the wages 
of free labor, under existing conditions, unmistakably tend. 
Whatever be the increase of productive power, rent steadily 
tends to swallow up the gain, and more than the gain. 

Thus the condition of the masses in every civilized country 
is, or is tending to become, that of virtual slavery under the 
forms of freedom. And it is probable that of all kinds of 
slavery this is the most cruel and relentless. For the laborer 
is robbed of the produce of his labor and compelled to toil 
for a mere subsistence ; but his taskmasters, instead of human 
beings, assume the form of imperious necessities. Those to 
whom his labor is rendered and from whom his wages are 
received are often driven in their turn — contact between the 
laborers and the ultimate beneficiaries of their labor is 
sundered, and individuality is lost. The direct responsibility 
of master to slave, a responsibility which exercises a 
softening influence upon the great majority of men, 
does not arise ; it is not one human being who seems 
to drive another to unremitting and ill-requited toil, but " the 
inevitable laws of supply and demand," for which no one in 
particular is responsible. The maxims of Cato the Censor — 
maxims which were regarded with abhorrence even in an age 
of cruelty and universal slaveholding — that after as much 
work as possible is obtained from a slave he should be turned 
out to die, become the common rule ; and even the selfish 
interest which prompts the master to look after the comfort 
and well-being of the slave is lost. Labor has become a 
commodity, and the laborer a machine. There are no 
masters and slaves, no ov/ners and owned, but only buyers 
and sellers. The higgling of the market takes the place of 
every other sentiment. 

When the slaveholders of the South looked upon the con- 
dition of the free laboring poor in the. most advanced civil- 
ized countries, it is no wonder that they easily persuaded 
themselves of the divine institution of slavery. That the 
field hands of the South were as a class better fed, better 
lodged, better clothed ; that they had less care and more of 



ENSLA VEMENT OF LABORERS. 255 

the amusements and enjoyments of life than the agricultural 
laborers of England there can be no doubt ; and even in the 
Northern cities, visiting slaveholders might see and hear of 
things impossible under what they called their organization of 
labor. In the Southern States, during the days of slavery, 
the master who would have compelled his negroes to work 
and live as large classes of free white men and women are 
compelled in free countries to work and live, would have been 
deemed infamous, and if public opinion had not restrained 
him, his own selfish interest in the maintenance of the health 
and strength of his chattels would. But in London, Nev/ 
York, and Boston, among people who have given, and would 
give again, money and blood .to free the slave, where no one 
could abuse a beast in public without arrest and punishment, 
barefooted and ragged children may be seen running around 
the streets even in the winter time, and in squalid garrets and 
noisome cellars women work away their lives for wages that 
fail to keep them in proper warmth and nourishment. Is it 
any wonder that to the slaveholders of the South the demand 
for the abolition of slavery seemed like the cant of hypoc- 
risy ? 

And now that slavery has been abolished, the planters of 
the South find they have sustained no loss. Their owner- 
ship of the land upon which the freedmen must live gives 
them practically as much command of labor as before, while 
they are relieved of responsibility, sometimes very expensive. 
The negroes as yet have the alternative of emigrating, and a 
great movement of that kind seems now about commencing, 
but as population increases and land becomes dear^ the 
planters will get a greater proportionate share of the earnings 
of their laborers than they did under the system of chattel 
slavery, and the laborers a less share — for under the system of 
chattel slavery the slaves always got at least enough to keep 
them in good physical health, but in such countries as England 
there are large classes of laborers who do not get that. * 

The influences which wherever there is personal relation 
between master and slave, slip in to modify chattel slavery, 
and to prevent the master from exerting to its fullest extent 
his power over the slave, also showed themselves in the ruder 
forms of serfdom that characterized the earlier periods of 

* One of the anti-slavery apfitators (Col. J. A. Collins) on a visit to England 
addressed a larg-e audience in a Scotch manufacturing' town, and wound up as he 
had been used to in the United States, by giving the ration which in the slave codes 
of some of the States fixed the minimum of maintenance for a slave. He quickly 
discovered that to many of liis hearers it was an anti-climax. 



256 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

European development, and aided by religion, and, perhaps, 
as in chattel slavery, by the more enlightened but still selfish 
interests of the lord, and hardening into custom, universally 
fixed a limit to what the owner of the land could extort from 
the serf or peasant, so that the competition of men without 
means of existence bidding against each other for access to 
the means of existence, was nowhere suffered to go to its full 
length and exert its full power of deprivation and degradation. 
The helots of Greece, the metayers of Italy, the serfs of 
Russia and Poland, the peasants of feudal Europe, rendered 
to their landlords a fixed proportion either of their produce 
or their labor, and were not generally squeezed past that 
point. But the influences which thus stepped in to modify 
the extortive power of land ownership, and which may still 
be seen on English estates where the landlord and his family 
deem it their duty to send medicines and comforts to the 
sick and infirm, and to look after the well-being of their 
cottagers, just as the Southern planter v/as accustomed to 
look after his negroes, are lost in the more refined and less 
obvious form which serfdom assumes in the more complicated 
processes of modern production, which separates so widely 
and by so many intermediate gradations the individual wlwse 
labor is appropriated from him who appropriates it, and 
makes the relations between the members of the two classes 
not direct and particular but indirect and general. In 
modern society, competition has free play to force from the 
laborer the very utmost he can give, and with what terrific 
force it is acting may be seen in the condition of the lowest 
class in the centers of wealth and industry. That the 
condition of this lowest class is not yet more general, is to be 
attributed to the great extent of fertile land which has 
hitherto been open on this continent, and which has not 
merely afforded an escape for the increasing population of 
the older sections of the Union, but has greatly relieved the 
pressure in Europe — in one countr)^, Ireland, the emigration 
having been so great as to actually reduce the population. 
This avenue of relief cannot last forever. It is already fast 
closing up, and as it closes, the pressure must become harder 
and harder. 

It is not without reason that the wise crow in the Ramayana, 
the crow Bushanda, " who has lived in every part of the 
universe and knows all events from the beginnings of time," 
declares that, though contempt of worldly advantages is 
necessary to supreme felicity, yet the keenest pain possible is 



CLAIM OF LAND OWNERS TO COMPENSATION 257 

inflicted by extreme jDoverty. The poverty to which in 
advancing civilization great masses of men are condemned, 
is not the freedom from distraction and temptation which 
sages have sought and philosophers have praised : it is a 
degrading and embruting slavery, that cramps the higher 
nature, duUs the finer feelings, and drives men by its pain to 
acts which the brutes would refuse. It is into this helpless, 
hopeless poverty, that crushes manhood and destroys woman- 
hood, that robs even childhood of its innocence and joy, that the 
working classes are being driven by a force which acts upon 
them like a resistless and unpitying machine. The Boston collar 
manufacturer who pays his girls two cents an hour may 
commiserate their condition, but he, as they, is governed by 
the law of competition, and cannot pay more and carry on 
his busijiess, for exchange is not governed by sentiment. 
And so, through all intermediate gradations, up to those who 
receive the earnings of labor without return, in the rent of 
land, it is the inexorable laws of supply and demand, a power 
with which the individual can no more quarrel or dispute 
than with the winds and the tides, that seem to press down 
the lower classes into the slavery of want. 

But in reality, the cause is that which always has and al- 
ways must result in slavery — the monopolization by some of 
what nature has designed for all. 

Our boasted freedom necessarily involves slavery, so long 
as v/e recognize private property in land. Until that is abol- 
ished. Declarations of Independence and Acts of Emancipa- 
tion are in vain. So long as one man can claim the exclusive 
ownership of the land from which other men must live, 
slavery will exist, and as material progress goes on, must 
grow and deepen ! 

This — and in previous chapters of this book we have 
traced the process step by step — is what is going on in the 
civilized world to-day. Private ownership of land is the 
nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. 
Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working 
classes are being ground. 



CHAPTER III. 



CLAIM OF LAND OWNERS TO COMPENSATION. 

The truth is, and from this truth there can be no escape, 
that there is and can be no just title to an exclusive posses- 

17 



258 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

sion of the soil, and that private property in land is a bold, 
bare, enormous wrong, like that of chattel slavery. 

The majority of men in civilized communities do not rec- 
ognize this, simply because the majority of men do not think. 
With them whatever is, is right, until its wrongfulness has 
been frequently pointed out, and in general they are ready 
to crucify whoever first attempts this. 

But it is impossible for any one to study political economy, 
even as at present taught, or to think at all upon the produc- 
tion and distribution of wealth, without seeing that property 
in land differs essentially from property in things of human 
production, and that it lias no warrant in abstract justice. 

This is admitted either expressly or tacitly in every stan- 
dard work on political economy, but in general merely by 
vague admission or omission. Attention is in general called 
away from the truth, as a lecturer on moral philosophy in a 
slave-holding community might call away attention from too 
close a consideration of the natural rights of men, and pri- 
vate property in land is accepted without comment, as an 
existing fact, or is assumed to be necessary to the proper use 
of land and the existence of the civilized state. 

The examination through which we have passed has proved 
conclusively that private property in land cannot be justified 
on the ground of utility — that, on the contrary, it is the great 
cause to which are to be traced the poverty, misery, and deg- 
radation, the social disease and the political weakness which 
are showing diemselves so menacingly amid advancing civili- 
zation. Expediency, therefore, joins justice in demanding 
that we abolish it. 

When expediency thus joins justice in demanding that we 
abolish an institution that has no broader base or stronger 
ground than a mere municipal regulation, what reason can 
there be for hesitation ? 

The consideration that seems to cause hesitation, even on 
the part of those who see clearly that land by right is common 
property, is the idea that having permitted land to be treated 
as private property for so long, we should in abolishing it, 
be doing a wrong to those who have been suffered to base 
their calculations upon its permanence ; that having permitted 
land to be held as rightful property, we^ should by the 
resumption of common rights be doing injustice to those who 
have purchased it with what was unquestionably their rightful 
property. Thus, it is held that if we abolish private property 
in land, justice requires that we should fully compensate 



CLAIM OF LAND OWNERS TO COMPENSATION. 259 

those who now possess it, as the British Government in 
aboHshing the purchase and sale of military commissions, felt 
Itself bound to compensate those who held commissions 
which they had purchased in the belief that they could sell 
them again, or as in abolishing slavery in the British West 
[ndies $100,000,000 was paid the slaveholders. 

Even Herbert Spencer, who in his " Social Statics " has so 
clearly demonstrated the invalidity of every title by which 
the exclusive possession of land is claimed, gives counte- 
nance to this idea (though it seems to me inconsistently) by 
declaring that to justly estimate and liquidate the claims of 
the present landowners " who have either by their own acts 
or by the acts of their ancestors, given for their estates equiva- 
lents of honestly-earned wealth," to be '• one of the most 
intricate problems society will one day have to solve." 

It is this idea that suggests the proposition, which finds 
advocates in Great Britain, that the government shall 
purchase at its market price the individual proprietorship of 
the land of the country, and it was this idea which led John 
Stuart Mill, although clearly perceiving the essential injustice 
of private property in land, to advocate, not a full resumption 
of the land, but only a resumption of accruing advantages in 
the future. His plan was that a fair and even liberal estimate 
should be made of the market value of all the land in the 
kingdom, and that future additions to that value, not due to 
the improvements of the proprietor, should be taken by the 
state. 

To say nothing of the practical difficulties which such 
cumbrous plans involve, in the extension of the functions of 
government which they would require and the corruption they 
would beget, their inherent and essential defect lies in the 
impossibility of bridging over by any compromise the radical 
difference between wrong and right. Just in proportion as 
the interests of the landholders are conserved, just in that 
proportion must general interests and general rights be 
disregarded, and if landholders are to lose nothing of their 
special privileges, the people at large can gain nothing. To 
buy up individual property rights would merely be to give 
the landholders in another form a claim of the same kind and 
amount that their possession of land now gives them ; it 
would be to raise for them by taxation the same proportion 
of the earnings of labor and capital that they are now 
enabled to appropriate in rent. Their unjust advantage 
would be preserved, and the unjust disadvantage of the non- 



26o JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

landholders would be continued. To be sure there would be 
a gain to the people at large when the advance of rents had 
made the amount which the landholders would take under 
the present system greater than the interest upon the purchase 
price of the land at present rates, but this would be only a 
future gain, and in the meanwhile there would not only be no 
relief, but the burden imposed upon labor and capital for the 
benefit of the present landholders would be much increased. 
For one of the elements in the present market value of land 
is the expectation of future increase of value, and thus, to 
buy up the lands at market rates and pay interest upon the 
purchase money would be to saddle producers not only 
with the payment -of actual rent, but with the payment 
in full of speculative rent. Or to put it in another way : The 
land would be purchased at prices calculated upon a lower 
than the ordinary rate of interest (for the prospective increase 
in land values always makes the market price of^land much 
greater than would be the price of anything else yielding the 
same present return), and interest upon the purchase money 
would be paid at the ordinary rate. Thus, not only all that 
the land yields them now would have to be paid the land- 
owners, but a considerably larger amount. It would be, 
virtually, the state taking a perpetual lease from the present 
landholders at a considerable advance in rent over what they 
now receive. For the present the state would merely become 
the agent of the landholders in the collection of their rents, 
and would have to pay over to them not only what they 
received, but considerably more. 

Mr. Mill's plan for nationalizing the future " unearned 
increase in the value of land," by fixing the present market 
value of all lands and appropriating to the state future 
increase in value, would not add to the injustice of the pre- 
sent distribution of wealth, but it would not remedy it. 
Further speculative advance of rent would cease, and in 
the future the people at large would gain the difference 
between the increase of rent and the amount at which that 
increase was estimated in fixing the present value of land, 
in which, of course, prospective, as well as present, value is an 
element. But it would leave, for all the future, one class in 
possession of the enormous advantage over others which 
they now have. All that can be said of this plan is, that 
it might be better than nothing. 

Such inefficient and impracticable schemes may do to talk 
about, where any proposition more efficacious would not at 



CLAIM OF LAND OWNERS TO COMPENSATION 261 

present be entertained, and their discussion is a hopeful sign, 
as it shows the entrance of the thin end of the wedge of 
truth. Justice In men's mouths is cringingly humble when she 
first begins a protest against a time-honored wrong, and we 
of the English-speaking nations still wear the collar of the 
Saxon thrall, and have been educated to look upon the 
" vested rights " of land owners with all the superstitious 
reverence that ancient Egyptians looked upon the crocodile. 
But when the times are ripe for them, ideas grow, even though 
insignificant in their first appearance. One day, the Third 
Estate covered their heads when the King put on his hat. 
A little while thereafter, and the head of a son of St. Louis 
rolled from the scaffold. The anti-slavery movement in the 
United States commenced with talk of compensating owners, 
but when four millions of slaves were emancipated, the own- 
ers got no compensation, nor did they clamor for any. And 
by the time the people of any such country as England or the 
United States are sufficiently aroused to the injustice and 
disadvantages of individual ownership of land to induce 
them to attempt its nationalization, they will be sufficiently 
aroused to nationalize it in a much more direct and easy way 
than by purchase. They will not trouble themselves about 
compensating the proprietors of land. 

Nor is it right that there should be any concern about the 
proprietors of land. That such a man as John Stuart Mill 
should have attached so much importance to the compensa- 
tion of land owners as to have urged the confiscation merely 
of the future increase in rent, is only explainable by his 
acquiescence in the current doctrines that wages are drav\^n 
from capital and that population constantly tends to press 
upon subsistence. These blinded him as to the full effects 
of the private appropriation of land. He saw that '' the 
claim of the landholder is altogether subordinate to the 
general policy of the state," and that "when private property 
in land is not expedient, it is unjust,"* but, entangled in the 
toils of the Malthusian doctrine, he attributed, as he expressly 
states in a paragraph 'I have previously quoted, the want and 
suffering that he saw around him to " the niggardliness of 
nature, not to the injustice of man," and thus to him the 
nationalization of land seemed comparatively a little thing, 
that could accomplish nothing towards the eradication of 
pauperism and the abolition of want — ends that could only 
be reached as men learned to repress a natural instinct 

* Principles of Political Economy, Book I, Chap. 2, Sec. 6. 



262 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 



Great as he was and pure as he was — warm heart and nobl^ 
mind — he yet never saw the true harmony of economic laws, 
nor reahzed how from this one great fundamental wrong flo\^ 
want and misery, and vice and shame. Else he could nevei 
have written this sentence : " The land of Ireland, the land 
of every country, belongs to the people of that country. The 
individuals called land owners have no right in morality and 
justice to anything but the rent, or compensation for its 
salable value." 

In the name of the Prophet — figs ! If the land of any 
country belong to the people of that country, what right, in 
morality and justice, have the individuals called land owners 
to the rent ? If the land belong to the people, why in the 
name of morality and justice sho.uld the people pay its salable 
value for their own ? 

Herbert Spencer says :* " Had we to deal with the parties 
who originally robbed the human race of its heritage, we 
might make short work of the matter ? " Why not make short 
work of the matter anyhow? For this robbery is not hke the rob- 
bery of a horse or a sum of money, that ceases with the act. 
It is a fresh and continuous robbery, that goes on every day 
and every hour. It is not from the produce of the past that 
rent is drawn ; it is from the produce of the present. It 
is a toll levied upon labor constantly and continuously. 
Every blow of the hammer, every stroke of the pick, every 
thrust of the shuttle, every throb of the steam engine, pay it 
tribute. It levies upon the earnings of the men who, deep 
under ground, risk their lives, and of those who over white 
surges hang to reeling masts ; it claims the just reward of the 
capitahst and the fruits of the inventor's patient effort ; it 
takes little children from play and from school, and compels 
them to work before their bones are hard or their muscles are 
firm ; it robs the shivering of warmth ; the hungry, of food ; 
the sick, of medicine ; the anxious, of peace. It debases, 
and embrutes, and embitters. It crowds families of eight 
and ten into a single squalid room ; it herds like swine agricul- 
tural gangs of boys and girls ; it fills the gin palace and 
groggery with those who have no comfort in their homes ; it makes 
lads who might be useful men candidates for prisons and peni- 
tentiaries ; it fill brothels with girls who might have known ^ the 
pure joy of motherhood ; it sends greed and all evil passions 
prowling through society as a hard winter drives the wolves 
to the abodes of . men ; it darkens faith in the human soul, and 

* Social Statics, page 142. 



1 



CLAIM OF LAND OWNERS TO COMPENSATION 263 

across the reflection of a just and merciful Creator draws the 
vail of a hard, and blind, and cruel fate ! 

It is not merely a robbery in the past ; it is a robbery in 
the present — a robbery that deprives of their birthright the 
infants that are now coming into the world ! Why should we 
hesitate about making short work of such a system ? Because 
I was robbed yesterday, and the day before, and the day 
before that, is it any reason that I should suffer myself to be 
robbed to-day and to-morrow ? any reason that I should con- 
clude that the robber has acquired a vested -right to rob me ? 

If the land belong .to the people, why continue to permit 
land owners to take the rent, or compensate them in any man- 
ner for the loss of rent? Consider what rent is. It does not 
arise spontaneously from land ; it is due to nothing that the 
land owners have done. It represents a value created by the 
whole community. Let the landholders have, if you please, 
all that the possession of the land would give them in the 
absence of the rest of the community. But rent, the creation 
of the whole community, necessarily belongs to the whole 
community. 

Try the case of the landholders by the maxims of the com- 
mon law by which the rights of man and man are determined. 
The common law we are told is the perfection of reason, and 
certainly the land owners cannot complain of its decision, for 
it has been built up by and for land owners. Now what does 
the law allow to the innocent possessor when the land for 
which he paid his money is adjudged to rightfully belong to 
another ? Nothing at all. That he purchased in good faith 
gives him no right or claim whatever. The law does not con- 
cern itself with the "intricate question of compensation" to the 
innocent purchaser. The law does not say, as John Stuart 
Mill says: " The land belongs to A, therefore B who has 
thought himself the owner has no right to anything but the 
rent, or compensation for its salable value." For that would 
be indeed like a famous fugitive slave case decision in which 
the Court was said to have given the law to the North and the 
nigger to the South. The law simply says, "The land belongs 
to A, let the Sheriff put him in possession!" It gives the 
innocent purchaser of a wrongful title no claim, it allows him 
no compensation. And not only this, it takes from him all the 
improvements that he has in good faith made upon the land. 
You may have paid a high price for land, making every exertion 
to see that the title is good ; you may have held it in undis- 
turbed possession for years v/ithout thought or hint of an ad- 



264 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

verse claimant; made it fruitful by your toil or erected upon it a 
costly building of greater value than the land itself, or a modest 
home in which you hope, surrounded by the fig trees you have 
planted and the vines you have dressed, to pass your declining 
days ; yet if Quirk, Gammon & Snap can mouse out a technical 
flaw in your parchments or hunt up some forgotten heir who 
never dreamed of his rights, not merely the land, but all your 
improvements, may be taken away from you. And not merely 
that. According to the common law, when you have surren- 
dered the land and given up your improvements, you may be 
called upon to account for the profits you derived from the land 
during the time you had ito 

Now if we apply to this case of The People vs. The Land 
Owners the same maxims of justice that have been formu- 
lated by land owners into law, and are applied every day 
in English and American courts to disputes between man 
and man, we shall not only not think of giving the l^and- 
holders any compensation for the land, but shall take all the 
improvements and whatever else they may have as well. 

But I do not propose, and I do not suppose that any one 
else will propose, to go so far. It is sufficient if the people 
resume the ownership of the land. Let the land owners retain 
their improvements and personal property in secure posses- 
sion. 

And in this measure of justice would be no oppression, no 
injury to any class. The great cause of the present unequal 
distribution of wealth, with the suffering, degradation, and 
waste that it entails, would be swept away. Even landholders 
would share in the general gain. The gain of even the large 
landholders would be a real one. The gain of the small land- 
holders would be enormous. For in welcoming Justice, men 
welcome the handmaid of Love. Peace and Plenty follow in 
her train, bringing their good gifts, not to some, but to all. 

How true this is, w^e shall hereafter see. 

If in this chapter I have spoken of justice and expediency 
as if justice were one thing and expediency another, it has 
been merely to meet the objections of those w^ho so talk. In 
justice is the highest and truest expediency. 



PROPERTY IJSr LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 265 



CHAPTER IV. 

PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 

What more than anything else prevents the realization of 
the essential injustice of private property in land and stands 
in the way of a candid consideration of any proposition for 
abolishing it, is that mental habit which makes anything that 
has long existed seem natural and necessary. 

We are so used to the treatment of land as individual prop- 
erty, it is so thoroughly recognized in our laws, manners, and 
customs, that the vast majority of people never think of 
questioning it ; but look upon it as necessary to the use of 
land. They are unable to conceive, or at least it does not 
enter their heads to conceive, of society as existing or as 
possible without the reduction of land to private possession. 
The first step to the cultivation or improvement of land seems 
to them to get for it a particular owner, and a man's land is 
looked on by them as fully and as equitably his, to sell, to 
lease, to give, or to bequeath, as his house, his cattle, his 
goods, or his furniture. The " sacredness of property" has 
been preached so constantly and effectively, especially by 
those " conservators of ancient barbarism," as Voltaire styled 
the lawyers, that most people look upon the private ownership 
of land as the very foundation of civilization, and if the re- 
sumption of land as common property is suggested, think of 
it at first blush either as a chimerical vagary, which never 
has and never can be realized, or as a proposition to overturn 
society from its base and bring about a reversion to bar- 
barism. 

If it were true that land had always been treated as private 
property, that would not prove the justice or necessity of 
continuing so to treat it, any more than the universal exist- 
ence of slavery, which might once have been safely affirmed, 
would prove the justice or necessity of making property of 
human flesh and blood. 

Not long ago, monarchy seemed all but universal, and not 
only the kings but the majority of their subjects really be- 
lieved that no country could get along without a king. Yet, 



266 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY- 

to say nothing of America, France now gets along without a 
king ; the Queen of England and Empress of India has about 
as much to do with governing her realms as the wooden figure- 
head of a ship has in determining its course, and the other 
crowned heads of Europe sit, metaphorically speaking, upon 
barrels of nitro-glycerine. 

Something over a hundred years ago. Bishop Butler, author 
of the famous Analogy, declared that " a constitution of civil 
government without any religious establishment is a chimeri- 
cal project of which there is no example." As for there be- 
ing no example, he was right. No government at that time 
existed, nor would it have been easy to name one that ever 
had existed, without some sort of an established religion ; yet 
in the United States we have since proved by the practice of a 
century that it is possible for a civil government to exist 
without a state church. 

But while, were it true, that land had always and every- 
where been treated as private property would not prove that it 
should always be so treated, this is not true. On the con- 
trary, the common right to land has everywhere been primarily 
recognized, and private ownership has nowhere grown up 
save as the result of usurpation. The primary and persistent 
perceptions of mankind are that all have an equal right lo 
land, and the opinion that private property in land is nec- 
essary to society is but an offspring of ignorance that cannot 
look beyond its immediate surroundings — an idea of com- 
paratively modern growth, as artificial and as baseless as that 
of the right divine of kings. 

The observations of travelers, the researches of the critical 
historians who within a recent period have done so much to 
reconstruct the forgotten records of the people, the investi- 
gations of such men as Sir Henry Maine, Emile de Laveleye, 
Professor Nasse of Bonn, and others, into the growth of in- 
stitutions, prove that wherever human society has formed, the 
common right of men to the use of the earth has been recog- 
nized, and that nowhere has unrestricted individual ownership 
been freely adopted. Historically, as ethically, private prop- 
erty in land is robbery. It nowhere springs from contract ; it 
can nowhere be traced to perceptions of justice or expediency ; 
it has everywhere had its birth in war and conquest, and in the 
selfish use which the cunning have made of superstition and 
law. 

Wherever we can trace the early history of society, whether 
in Asia, in Europe, in Africa, in America, or in Polynesia, 



PROPERTY IN LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 267 

land has been considered, as the necessary relations which 
human life has to it would lead to its consideration — as com- 
mon property, in w^hich the rights of all who had admitted 
rights were equal. That is to say, that all members of the 
community (all citizens, as we should say) had equal rights 
to the use and enjoyment of the land of the community. 
This recognition of the common right to land did not prevent 
the full recognition of the particular and exclusive right in 
things which are the result of labor, nor was it abandoned 
when the development of agriculture had imposed the neces- 
sity of recognizing exclusive possession of land in order to 
secure the exclusive enjoyment of the results of the labor 
expended in cultivating it. The division of land between the 
industrial units, whether families, joint families, or individuals, 
only went as far as was necessary for that purpose, pasture 
and forest lands being retained as common, and equality as to 
agricultural land being secured, either by a periodical re-divi- 
sion, as among the Teutonic races, or by the prohibition of 
alienation, as in the law of Moses. 

This primary adjustment still exists, in more or less intact 
form, In the village communities of India, Russia, and the 
Sclavonic countries yet, or until recently, subjected to Turkish 
rule ; in the mountain cantons of Switzerland ; among the 
Kabyies in the north of Africa, and the Kaffirs in the south ; 
among the native population of Java and the aborigines of 
New Zealand — that is to say, wherever extraneous influences 
have left intact the form of primitive social organization. 
That it everywhere existed has been within late years abun- 
dantly proved by the researches of many independent students 
and observers, and which are (to my knowledge) best sum- 
marized in the " Systems of Land Tenures in Various Coun- 
tries," published under authority of the Cobden Club, and in 
M. Emile de Laveleye's " Primitive Property," to which I 
would refer the reader who desires to see this truth displayed 
in detail. 

" In all primitive societies," says M. de Laveleye, as the 
result of an investigation which leaves no part of the world 
unexplored — *' in all primitive societies, the soil was the joint 
property of the tribes and was subject to periodical distribu- 
tion among all the families, so that all might live by their labor 
as nature has ordained. The comfort of each was thus pro- 
portioned to his energy and intelligence ; no one, at any rate, 
was destitute of the means of subsistence, and inequality in- 
creasing from generation to generation was provided against." 



268 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

If M. de Laveleye be right in this conclusion, and that he 
is riglit there can be no doubt, how, it will be asked, has the 
reduction of land to private ownership become so general ? 

The causes which have operated to supplant this original 
idea of the equal right to the use of land by the idea of ex- 
clusive and unequal rights may, I think, be everywhere 
vaguely but certainly traced. They are everj^where the same 
which have led to the denial of equal personal rights and the 
establishment of privileged classes. 

These causes may be summarized as the concentration of 
power in the hands of chieftains and the military class, con- 
sequent on a state of warfare, which enabled them to monop- 
olize common lands ; the effect of conquest, in reducing the 
conquered to a state of predial slavery, and dividing their 
land among the conquerors, and in disproportionate share to 
the chiefs ; the differentiation and influence of a sacerdotal 
class, and the differentiation and influence of a class of pro- 
fessional lawyers, whose interests were served by the substi- 
tution of exclusive, in place of common, property in land^ — 
inequality once produced always tending to greater inequality, 
by the law of attraction. 

It was the struggle between this idea of equal rights to 
the soil and the tendency to monopolize it in individual 
possession, that caused the internal conflicts of Greece and 
Rome ; it was the check given to this tendency — in Greece 
by such institutions as those of Lycurgus and Solon, and in 
Rome by the Licinian Law and subsequent divisions of land, 
that gave to each their days of strength and glory ; and it was 
the final triumph of this tendency that destroyed both. Great 
estates ruined Greece, as afterwards "great estates ruined 
Italy,"t and as the soil, in spite of the warnings of great 
legislators and statesmen, passed finally into the possession 
of a few, population declined, art sank, the intellect became 
emasculate, and the race in which humanity had attained its 
most splendid development became a byword and reproach 
among men. 

The idea of absolute individual property in land, which 
modern civilization derived from Rome, reached its full 
development there in historic times. When the future mis- 
tress of the world first looms up, each citizen had his little 

*The influence of the lawyers has been very marked in Europe, both on the conti- 
nent and in Great Eritain', in destroying all vestiges pf the ancjent tenure, and sub- 
stituting the idea of the Roman law, exclusive bwner§hi^i •• '. :. ... 

t Latifundia perdidere Italiara. — Pliny. 



1 



PROPERTY IN LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 269 

homestead plot, which was malienable, and the general 
domain — " the corn-land that was of public right " — was 
subject to common use, doubtless under regulations or 
customs which secured equality, as in the Teutonic mark and 
Swiss allmend. It was from this public domain, constantly 
extended by conquest, that the patrician families succeeded 
in carving their great estates. These great estates by the 
power with which the great attracts the less, in spite of tem- 
porary checks by legal limitation and recurring divisions,, 
finally crushed out all the small proprietors, adding their little 
patrimonies to the latifundia of the enormously rich, while 
they themselves were forced into the slave gangs, became 
rent-paying colonii, or else were driven into the freshly 
conquered foreign provinces, where land was given to the 
veterans of the legions ; or to the metropolis, to swell the 
ranks of the proletariat who had nothing to sell but their 
votes. 

Caesarism, soon passing into an unbridled despotism of the 
Eastern type, was the inevitable political result, and the 
empire, even while it embraced the world, became in reality a 
shell, kept from collapse only by the healthier life of the 
frontiers, where the land had been divided between military 
settlers or the primitive usages longer survived. But the 
latifundia^ which had devoured the strength of Italy, crept 
steadily outward, carving the surface of Sicily, Africa, Spain, 
and Gaul into great estates cultivated by slaves or tenants. 
The hardy virtues born of personal independence died out, 
an exhaustive agriculture impoverished the soil, and wild 
beasts supplanted men, until at length, with a strength 
nurtured in equality, the barbarians broke through ; Rome 
perished ; and of a civilization once so proud nothing was 
left but ruins. 

Thus came to pass that marvelous thing, which at the 
time of Rome's grandeur would have seemed as impossible as 
it seems now to us that the Comanches or Flatheads should 
conquer the United States, or the Laplanders should desolate 
Europe. The fundamental cause is to be sought in the 
tenure of land. On the one hand, the denial of the common 
right of land had resulted in decay ; on the other, equality 
gave strength. 

" Freedom," says M. de Laveleye (" Primitive Property," 
p. 116,), "freedom, and, as a consequence, the ownership of 
an undivided share of the common property, to which the 
head of every family in the clan was equally entitled, were in 



270 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

the German village essential rights. This system of afbsolute 
equality impressed a remarkable character on the individual, 
which explains how small bands of barbarians made 
themselves masters of the Roman Empire, in spite of its 
skillful administration, its perfect centralization and its civil 
law, which has preserved the name of written reason." 

It was, on the other hand, that the heart was eaten out of 
that great empire. " Rome perished," says Professor Seeley, 
" from the failure of the crop of men." 

In his lectures on the " History of Civilirzation in Europe," 
and more elaborately in his lectures on the " History of 
Civilization in France," M. Guizot has vividly described 
the chaos that in Europe succeeded the fall of the Roman 
Empire — a chaos which, as he says, " carried all things in its 
bosom," and from which the structure of modern society was 
slowly evolved. It is a picture which cannot be compressed 
into a few lines, but suffice to say that the result of this 
infusion of rude but vigorous life into Romanized society was 
a disorganization of the German, as well as the Roman 
structure — both a blending and an admixture of the idea of 
common rights in the soil with the idea of exclusive property, 
substantially as occurred in those provinces of the Eastern 
Empire subsequently overrun by the Turks. The feudal 
system, which was so readily adopted and so widely spread, 
was the result of such a blending ; but underneath, and side 
by side with the feudal system, a more primitive organization, 
based on the common rights of the cultivators, took root or 
revived, and has left its traces all over Europe. This primi- 
tive organization which allots equal shares of cultivated 
ground and the common use of uncultivated ground, and 
which existed in Ancient Italy as in Saxon England, has 
maintained itself beneath absolutism and serfdom in Russia, 
beneath Moslem oppression in Servia, and in India has been 
swept, but not entirely destroyed, by wave after wave of 
conquest, and century after century of oppression. 

The feudal system, which is not peculiar to Europe, but 
seems to be the natural result of the conquest of a settled 
country by a race among whom equality and individuality are 
yet strong, clearly recognized, in theory at least, that the land 
belongs to society at large, not to the individual. Rude 
outcome of an age in which might stood for right as nearly as 
it ever can (for the idea of right is ineradicable from the 
human mind, and must in some shape show itself even in the 
association of pirates and robbers), the feudal system yet 



FROPERTY IN LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 271 

admitted in no one the uncontrolled and exclusive right to 
land. A fief was essentially a trust, and to enjoyment was 
annexed obligation. The sovereign, theoretically the repre- 
sentative of the collective power and rights of the whole 
people, was in feudal view the only absolute owner of land. 
And though land was granted to individual possession, yet in 
its possession were' involved duties, by which the enjoyer of 
its revenues was supposed to render back to the common- 
wealth an equivalent for the benefits which from the delega- 
tion of the common right he received. 

In the feudal scheme the crown lands supported public 
expenditures which are now included in the civil list ; the 
church lands defrayed the cost of public worship and 
instruction, of the care of the sick and of the destitute, and 
maintained a class of men who were supposed to be, and no 
doubt to a great extent were, devoting their lives to purposes 
of public good ; while the military tenures provided for the 
public defence. In the obligation under which the military 
tenant lay to bring into the field such and such a force 
when need should be, as well as in the aid he had to give 
when the sovereign's eldest son was knighted, his daughter 
married, or the sovereign himself made prisoner of war, was 
a rude and inefficient recognition, but still unquestionably 
a recognition, of the fact, obvious to the natural perceptions 
of all men, that land is not individual but common property. 

Nor yet was the control of the possessor of land allowed 
to extend beyond his own life. Although the principle of 
inheritance soon displaced the principle of selection, as where 
power is concentrated it always must, yet feudal law required 
that there should always be some representative of a fief, 
capable of discharging the duties as well as of receiving the 
benefits which were annexed to a landed estate, and who this 
should be, was not left to individual caprice, but rigorously 
determined in advance. Hence wardship and other feudal 
incidents. The system of primogeniture and its outgrowth, 
the entail, were in their beginnings not the absurdities they 
afterwards became. 

The basis of the feudal system was the absolute owner- 
ship of the land, an idea which the barbarians readily acquired 
in the midst of a conquered population to whom it was 
familiar ; b^^it over this, feudalism threw a superior right, and 
the process of infeudation consisted of bringing individual 
dominion into subordination to the superior dominion, which 
represented the l*arger community or nation. Its units ware 



272 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

the land owners, who by virtue of their ownership were abso- 
lute lords on their own domains, and who there" performed the 
office of protection which M. Taine has so graphically des- 
cribed, though perhaps with too strong a coloring, in the 
opening chapter of his '' Ancient Regime." The work of the 
feudal system was to bind together these units into nations, 
and to subordinate the powers and rights of the individual 
lords of land to the powers and rights of collective society, as 
;»£presented by the suzerain or king. 

Thus the feudal system, in its rise and development, was a 
triumph of the idea of the common right to land, changing an 
absolute tenure into a conditional tenure, and imposing pecu- 
liar obligations in return for the privilege of receiving rent. 
And during the same time, the power of land ownership was 
trenched, as it were, from below, the tenancy at will of the 
cultivators of the soil very generally hardening into tenancy 
by custom, and the rent which the lord could exact from the 
peasant becoming fixed and certain. 

And amid the feudal system there remainedj or there grew 
up, communities of cultivators, more or less subject to feudal 
dues, who tilled the soil as common property ; and although 
the lords, where and when they had the power, claimed pretty 
much all they thought worth claiming, yet the idea of common 
right was strong enough to attach itself by custom to a con- 
siderable part of the land. The commons, in feudal ages, 
must have embraced a very large proportion of the area of 
most European countries. For in France (although the 
appropriations of these lands by the aristocracy, occasionally 
checked and rescinded by royal edict, had gone on for some cen- 
turies prior to the Revolution, and during the Revolution and 
First Empire large distributions and sales were made), the 
common or communal lands still amount, according to M. de 
Laveleye, to 4,000,000 hectares, or 9,884,400 acres. The ex- 
tent of the common land of England during the feudal ages, 
may be inferred from the fact that though enclosures by the 
landed aristocracy began during the reign of Henry VII, it is 
stated that no less than 7,660,413 acres of common lands 
were inclosed under Acts passed between 17 10 and 1843, of 
which 600,000 acres have been enclosed since 1845 ; and it is 
estimated that there still remain 2,000,000 acres of common 
in England, though of course the most worthless parts of the 
soil. 

In addition to these common lands, there existed in 
France, until the Revolution, and in parts of Spain, until our 



PROPERTY IN LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 273 

own day, a custom having all the force of law, by which culti- 
vated lands, after the harvest had been gathered, became 
common for purposes of pasturage or travel, until the time 
had come to use the ground again ; and in some places a 
custom by which any one had the right to go upon ground 
which its owner neglected to cultivate, and there to sow and 
rea^D a crop in security. And if he chose to use manure for 
the first crop, he acquired the right \6 sow and gather a 
second crop without let or hindrance from the owner. 

It is not merely the Swiss allmend, the Ditmarsh mark, 
the Servian and Russian village communities ; not merely 
the long ridges which on English ground, now the exclusive 
property of individuals, still enable the antiquarian to trace 
out the great fields in ancient time devoted to the triennial 
rotation of crops, and in which each villager was annually 
allotted his equal plot ; not merely the documentary evidence 
which careful students have within late years drawn from old 
records ; but the very institutions under which modern civili- 
zation has developed, which prove the universality and long 
persistence of the recognition of the common right to the use 
of the soil. 

There still remain in our legal systems survivals that have 
lost their meaning, that, like the still existing remains of the 
ancient commons of England, point to this. The doctrine of 
eminent domain (existing as well in Mohammedan law), 
which makes the sovereign theoretically the only absolute 
owner of land, springs from nothing but the recognition of 
the sovereign as the representative of the collective rights of 
the people ; primogeniture and entail, which still exist in 
England, and which existed in some of the American States 
a hundred years ago, are but distorted forms of what was 
once an outgrowth of the apprehension of land as common 
property. The very distinction made in legal terminology 
between real and personal property is but the survival of a 
primitive distinction between what was originally looked up- 
on as common property and what from its nature was always 
considered the peculiar property of the individual. And the 
greater care and ceremony which are yet required for the 
transfer of land is but a survival, now meaningless and use- 
less, of the more general and ceremonious consent once 
required for the transfer of rights which were looked upon, 
not as belonging to any one member, but to every member of 
a family or tribe. 

The general course of the development of modern civiliza- 
18 



27 4 JUSTICE OF THE REMED V. 

tion since the feudal period has been to the subversion of 
these natural and primary ideas of collective ownership in 
the soil. Paradoxical as it may appear, the emergence of 
liberty from feudal bonds has been accompanied by a ten- 
dency in the treatment of land to the form of ownership 
which involves the enslavement of the working classes, and 
which is now beginning to be strongly felt all over the civil- 
ized world, in the pressure of an iron yoke, which cannot be 
relieved by any extension of mere political power or personal 
liberty, and which political economists mistake for the press- 
ure of natural laws, and workmen for the oppressions of 
capital. 

This is clear — that in Great Britain to-day the right of the 
people as a whole to the soil of their native country is much 
less fully acknowledged than it v/as in feudal times. A much 
smaller proportion of the people own the soil, and their 
ownership is much more absolute. The commons, once so 
extensive and so largely contributing to the independence 
and support of the lower classes, have, all but a small rem- 
nant of yet worthless land, been appropriated to individual 
ownership and enclosed; the great estates of the church, 
which were essentially common property devoted to a public 
purpose, have been diverted from that trust to enrich individ- 
uals ; the dues of the military tenants have been shaken off, 
and the cost of maintaining the military establishment and 
paying the interest upon an immense debt accumulated by 
wars has been saddled upon the whole people, in taxes upon 
the necessaries and comforts of life. The crown lands have 
mostly passed into private possession, and for the support of 
the royal family and all the petty princelings who marry into 
it, the British workman must pay in the price of his mug of 
beer and pipe of tobacco. The English yeoman — the sturdy 
breed atIio won Crecy, and Poictiers, and Agincourt — are as 
extinct as the mastodon. The Scottish clansman, whose right 
to the soil of his native hills was then as undisputed as that 
of his chieftain, has been driven out to make room for the sheep 
ranges or deer parks of that chieftain's descendant ; the tribal 
right of the Irishman has been turned into a tenancy-at-will. 
Thirty thousand men have legal power to expel the whole 
population from five-sixths of the British Islands, and the 
Vast majority of the British people have no right whatever to 
their native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads. 
To them may be fittingly applied the words of a Tribune of 
the Roman People : " Men of Rofne^'' said Tiberius Gracchus 



PROPERTY IN LAND HISTORIC ALLY CONSIDERED. 275 

— '• me?i of Rome, you are called the lords of the world, yet havi 
710 right to a square foot of its soil / 27ie wild beasts have theii 
dens, but the soldiers of Italy have ofily water and air I " 

The result has, perhaps, been more marked in Englan(^ 
than anywhere else, but the tendency is observable every 
where, having gone further in England owing to circum' 
stances which have developed it with greater rapidity. 

The reason, I take it, that with the extension of the idea oi" 
personal freedom has gone on an extension of the idea of pri 
vate property in land, is that as in the progress of civilization 
the grosser forms of supremacy connected with land ownership 
were dropped, or abolished, or became less obvious, attention 
was diverted from the more insidious, but really more potential 
forms, and the land owners were easily enabled to put prop 
erty in land on the same basis as other property. 

The growth of national power, either in the form of royalt) 
or harliamentary government, stripped the great lords of indi- 
vidual power and importance and of their jurisdiction and 
power over persons, and so repressed striking abuses, as the 
growth of Roman , Imperialism repressed the more striking 
cruelties of slavery. The disintegration of the large feudal 
estates, which, until the tendency to concentration arising 
from the modern tendency to production upon a large scald 
is strongly felt, operated to increase the number of land 
owners, and the abolition of the restraints by which land owners 
when population was sparser endeavored to compel laboreh 
to remain on their estates, also contributed to draw away at 
tention from the essential injustice involved in private prop- 
erty in land; while the steady progress of legal ideas draww 
from the Roman law, which has been the great mine and 
storehouse of modern jurisprudence, tended to level the nat 
ural distinction between property in land and property ii? 
other things. Thus, with the extension of personal lib 
erty, went on an extension of individual proprietorship in 
land. 

The political power of the barons was, m.oreover, not broken 
by the revolt of the classes who could clearly feel the 
injustice of land ownership. Such revolts took place, again 
and again ; but again and again w^ere they repressed with ter- 
rible cruelties. What broke the power of the barons was the 
growth of the artisan and trading classes, between whose 
wages and rent there is not the same obvious relation. These 
classes, too, developed under a system of close guilds 
and corporations, which, as I have previously explained in 



276 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

treating of trade combinations and monopolies, enabled them 
to somewhat fence themselves in from the operation of the 
general law of wages, and which were much more easily main- 
tained than now, when the effect of improved methods of trans- 
portation, and the diffusion of rudimentary education and of 
current news, is steadily making population more mobile. 
These classes did not see, and do not yet see, that the tenure of 
land is the fundamental fact which must ultimately determine 
the conditions of industrial, social and political life. And so the 
tendency has been to assimilate the idea of property in land 
with that of property in things of human production, and even 
steps backward have been taken, and been hailed, as steps in 
advance. The French Constituent Assembly, in 1789, thought 
it was sweeping away a relic of tyranny when it abolished 
tithes and imposed the support of the clergy on general taxa- 
tion. The Abbd Sieyes stood alone when he told them that 
they were simply remitting to the proprietors a tax which was 
one of the conditions on which they held their lands, and re- 
imposing it on the labor of the nation. But in vain. The 
Abbe Sieyes being a priest, was looked on as defending the 
interests of his order, when in truth he Y\^as defending the 
rights of man. In those tithes, the French people might have 
retained a large public revenue which would not have taken 
one centime from the wages of labor or the earnings of cap- 
ital. 

And so the abolition of the military tenures in England by 
the Long Parliament, ratified after the accession of Charles II, 
though simply an appropriation of public revenues by the feu- 
dal landholders who thus got rid of the consideration on which 
they held the common property of the nation, and saddled it 
on the people at large, in the taxation of all consumers, has 
been long characterized, and is still held up in the law books, 
as a triumph of the spirit of freedom. Yet here is the source 
of the immense debt and heavy taxation of England. Had 
the form of these feudal dues been simply changed into one 
better adapted to the changed times, English wars need never 
have occasioned the incurring of debt to the amount of a 
single pound, and the labor and capital of England need not 
have been taxed a single farthing for the maintenance of a 
military establishment. All this would have come from rent, 
wdiich the land holders since that time have appropriated to 
themselves — from the tax which land ownership levies on the 
earnings of labor and capital. The landholders of England 
g[ot their land on terms which required them even in the 



PROPERTY IN LAND IN THE UNITED STATES. 277 

sparse population of Norman days to put in the field, upon 
call, sixty thousand perfectly equipped horsemen,"^ and on 
the further condition of various fines and incidents which 
amounted to a considerable part of the rent. It would prob- 
ably be a low estimate to put the pecuniary value of these va- 
rious services and dues at one-half the rental value of the 
land. Had the landholders been kept to this contract and 
no land been permitted to be inclosed except upon similar 
terms, the income accruing to the nation from English land 
would to-day be greater by many millions than the entire pub- 
lic revenues of the United Kingdom. England to-day might 
have enjoyed absolute free trade. There need not have been 
a customs duty, an excise, license or income tax, yet all the 
present expenditures could be met, and a large surplus remain 
to be devoted to any purpose which would conduce to the 
comfort or well-being of the whole people. 

Turning back, wherever there is light to guide us, we mav 
everywhere see that in their first perceptions, all peoples 
have recognized the common ownership in land, and that 
private property is an usurpation, a creation of force and 
fraud. 

As Madame de Stael said, " Liberty is ancient." Justice, 
if we turn to the most ancient records, will always be found 
to have the title of prescription. 



CHAPTER V. 

OF PROPERTY IN LAND IN THE UNITED STATES. 

In the earlier stages of civilization we see that land is 
everywhere regarded as common property. And, turning 
from the dim past to our own times, we may see that natural 
perceptions are still the same, and that when placed under 
circumstances in which the influence of education and habit 
is weakened, men instinctively recognize the equality, of right 
to the bounty of nature. 

The discovery of gold in California brought together in a 
new country men who had been used to look on land as the 
rightful subject of individual property, and of whom probably 

* Andrew Bisset, in ''The Streng-th of Nations," London, 1859, a suggestive work 
in which he calls the attention of the English people to this measure by which the 
landowners avoided the payment of their rent to the nation, disputes the statement 
flf Blackstone Ihat a knight's service was but for 40 days, and says it was during 
necessity. 



'?78 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

yiot one in a thousand had ever dreamed of drawing any dis- 
tinction between property in land and property in anything 
else. But, for die first time in the history of the Anglo-Saxon 
race, these men were brought into contact with land from 
which gold could be obtained by the simple operation of 
washing it out. 

Had iht> land with which they were thus called upon to 
deal been agricultural, or grazing, or forest land, of peculiar 
richness ; had it been land which derived peculiar value from 
its situation for commercial purposes ; or by reason of the 
water power which it afforded, or even had it contained rich 
mines of coal, iron or lead, the land system to which they had 
been used would have been applied, and it would have been 
reduced to private ownership in large tracts, as even the 
pueblo lands of San Francisco (really the most valuable in 
the state), which by Spanish law had been set apart to furnish 
homes for the future residents of that city, were reduced, with- 
out any protest worth speaking of. But the novelty of the 
case broke through habitual ideas, and threw men back upon 
first principles, and it was by common consent declared that 
this gold bearing land should remain common property, of 
which no one might take more than he could reasonably use, 
or hold for a longer time than he continued to use it. This 
perception of natural justice was acquiesced in by the 
General Government and the courts, and while placer mining 
remained of importance, no attempt was made to overrule 
this reversion to primitive ideas. The title to the land 
remained in the Government, and no individual could acquire 
more than a possessory claim. The miners in each district 
fixed the amount of ground an individual could take and the 
amount of work that must be done to constitute use. If this 
work were not done, any one could re-locate the ground. 

Thus no one was allowed to forestall or to lock up natural 
resources. Labor was acknowledged as the creator of wealth, 
was given a free field, and secured in its reward. The device 
would not have assured complete equality of rights under the 
conditions that in most countries prevail ; but under the con- 
ditions that there and then existed — a sparse population, an 
unexplored country, and an occupation in its nature a lottery, 
it secured substantial justice. One man might strike an 
enormously rich deposit, and others might vainly prospect for 
months and years, but all had an equal chance. No one was 
allowed to play the dog in the manger with the bounty of the 
Creator. The essential idea of the mining regulations was 



PROPERTY IN LAND IN THE UNITED STATES. 279 

to prevent forestalling and monopoly. Upon the same princi- 
ple are based the mining laws of Mexico ; and the same 
principle M^as adopted in Australia, in British Columbia, and 
in the diamond fields of South Africa, for it accords with nat- 
ural perceptions of justice. 

With the decadence of placer mining in California, the 
accustomed idea of private property finally prevailed in 
the passage of a law permitting the patenting of mineral 
lands. The only effect is to lock up opportunities — to give 
the owner of mining ground the power of saying that no one 
else may use what he does not choose to use himself. And 
there are many cases in which mining ground is thus with- 
held from use for speculative purposes, just as valuable 
building lots and agricultural land are withheld from use. 
But while thus preventing use, the extension to mineral 
land of the same principle of private ownership which marks 
the tenure of other lands, has done nothing for the security 
of improvements. The greatest expenditures of capital in 
opening and developing mines — expenditures that in some 
cases amounted to millions of dollars — were made upon 
possessory titles. 

Had the circumstances which beset the first English 
settlers in North America been such as to call their attention 
de novo to the question of land ownership, there can be no 
doubt that they would have reverted to first principles, just 
as they reverted to first principles in matters of government ; 
and individual land ownership would have been rejected, 
just as aristocracy and monarchy were rejected. But while 
in the country from which they came this system had not yet 
fully developed itself, nor its effects been fully felt, the fact 
that in the new country an immense continent invited settle- 
ment prevented any question of the justice and policy of 
private property in land from arising. For in a new country, 
equality seems sufficiently assured if no one is permitted to 
take land to the exclusion of the rest. At first no harm 
seems to be done by treating this land as absolute property. 
There is plenty of land left for those who choose to take it, 
and the slavery that in a later stage of development neces- 
sarily springs from the individual ownership of land is not 
felt. 

In Virginia and to the South, where the settlement had 
an aristocratic character, the natural complement of the 
large estates into which the land was carved was introduced 
in the shape of negro slaves. But the first settlers of New 



28o JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

England divided the land as, twelve centuries before, their 
ancestors had divided the land of Britain, giving to each 
head of a family his town lot and his seed lot, while beyond 
lay the free common. So far as concerned the great proprie- 
tors whom the English kings by letters patent endeavored to 
create, the settlers saw clearly enough the injustice of the 
attempted monopoly, and none of these proprietors got much 
from their grants ; but the plentifulness of land prevented 
attention from being called to the monopoly which individual 
land ownership, even when the tracts are small, must involve 
when land becomes scarce. And so it has come to pass that 
the great republic of the modern world has adopted at the 
beginning of its career an institution that ruined the repub- 
lics of antiquity : that a people who proclaim the inalienable 
rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness 
have accepted v/ithout question a principle wdiich, in denying 
the equal and inalienable right to the soil, finally denies the 
equal right to life and liberty ; that the people who, at the cost 
of a bloody war have abolished chattel slavery, yet permit 
slavery in a more widespread and dangerous form to take 
root. 

The continent has seemed so wide, the area over which 
population might yet pour so vast, that familiarized by habit 
with the idea of private property in land, we have not real- 
ized its essential injustice. For not merely has this back- 
ground of unsettled land prevented the full effect of private 
appropriation from being felt, even in the older sections, but 
to permit a man to take more land than he could use, that he 
might compel those who afterward needed it to pay him for 
the privilege of using it, has not seemed so unjust when 
others in their turn might do the same thing by going further 
on. And more than this, the very fortunes that have 
resulted from the appropriation of land, and that have thus 
really been drawn from taxes levied upon the wages of labor, 
have seemed, and have been heralded, as prizes held out to 
the laborer. In all the newer States, and even to a consider- 
able extent in the older ones, our landed aristocracy is yet in 
its first generation. Those who have profited by the increase 
in the value of land have been largely men who began life 
without a cent. Their great fortunes, many of them running 
up high into the millions, seem to them, and to many others, 
as the best proofs of the justice of existing social conditions 
in rewarding prudence, foresight, industry, and thrift ; 
whereas, the truth is that these fortunes are but the gains of 



PROPERTY IN LAND IN THE UNITED STATES. 281 

monopoly, and are necessarily made at the expense of labor. 
But the fact that those thus enriched started as laborers 
hides this, and the same feeling which leads every ticket 
holder in a lottery to delight in imagination in the magni- 
tude of the prizes has prevented even the poor from 
quarreling with a system which thus made many poor men 
rich. 

In short, the American people have failed to see the essen- 
tial injustice of private property in land, because as yet they 
have not felt its full eifects. This public domain — the vast 
extent of land yet to be reduced to private possession, the 
enormous common to which the faces of the energetic were 
always turned, has been the great fact that, since the days 
when the first settlements began to fringe the Atlantic Coast, 
has formed our national character and colored our national 
thought. It is not that we have eschewed a titled aristocracy 
and abolished primogeniture ; that we elect all our officers 
from School Director up to President ; that our laws run in 
the name of the people, instead of in the name of a prince; 
that the State knows no religion, and our judges wear no 
wigs — that we have been exempted from the ills that Fourth 
of July orators used to point to as characteristic of the effete 
despotisms of the Old World. The general intelligence, the 
general comfort, the active invention, the power of adaptation 
and assimilation, the free, independent spirit, the energy and 
hopefulness that have marked our people, are not causes, but 
results, — they have sprung from unfenced land. This public 
domain has been the transmuting force which has turned the 
thriftless, unambitious European peasant into the self-reliant 
Western farmer ; it has given a consciousness of freedom 
even to the dweller in crowded cities, and has been a well- 
spring of hope even to those who have never thought of 
taking refuge upon it. The child of the people, as he grows 
to manhood in Europe, finds all the best seats at the banquet 
of life marked " taken," and must struggle with his fellows 
for the crumbs that fall, without one chance in a thousand of 
forcing or sneaking his way to a seat. In America, whatever 
his condition, there has always been the consciousness that 
the public domain lay behind him ; and the knowledge of 
this fact, acting and reacting, has penetrated our whole 
national life, giving to it generosity and independence, elas- 
ticity and ambition. All that we are proud of in the Ameri- 
can character ; all that makes our conditions and institutions 
better than those of older countries, we may trace to the fact 



282 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

that land has been cheap in the United States, because new 
soil has been open to the emigrant. 

But our advance has reached the Pacific. Further west we 
cannot go, and increasing population can but expand north 
and south and fill up what has been passed over. North, it is 
already filling up the valley of the Red River, pressing into 
that of the Saskatchewan and pre-empting Washington Terri- 
tory ; south, it is covering Western Texas and taking up the 
arable valleys of New Mexico and Arizona. 

The republic has entered upon a new era, an era in which 
the monopoly of the land will tell with accelerating effect. The 
great fact which has been so potent is ceasing to be. The 
public domain is almost gone — a very few years will end its 
influence, already rapidly failing. I do not mean to say that 
there will be no public domain. For a long time to come there 
will be millions of acres of public lands carried on the books 
of the Land Department. But it must be remembered that the 
best part of the continent for agricultural purposes is already 
overrun, and that it is the poorest land that is left. It must 
be remembered that what remains comprises the great moun- 
tain ranges, the sterile deserts, the high plains fit only for graz- 
ing. And it must be remembered that much of this land which 
figures in the reports as open to settlement is unsurveyed land, 
which has been appropriated by possessory claims or locations 
which do not appear until the land is returned as surveyed. 
California figures on the books of the Land Department as the 
greatest land State of the Union, containing nearly 100,000,000 
acres of public land — something like one-twelfth of the whole 
public domain. Yet so much of this is covered by railroad 
grants or held in the way of which I have spoken ; so much con- 
sists of untillable mountains or plains which require irriga- 
tion, so much is monopolized by locations which command the 
water that as a matter of fact it is difficult to point the immigrant 
to any part of the State where he can take up a farm on which 
he can settle and maintain a family, and so men, weary of the 
quest, end by buying land or renting it on shares. It is not 
that there is any real scarcity of land in California — for, an 
empire in herself, California will some day maintain a popula- 
tion as large as that of France — but appropriation has got 
ahead of the settler and manages to keep just ahead of liim. 

Some twelve or fifteen years ago the late Ben Wade of Ohio 
said, in a speech in the United States Senate, that by the close 
of this century every acre of ordinary agricultural land in the 
United States would be worth ^50 in gold. It is already clear 



PROPERTY IN LAND IN THE UNITED STA TES. 283 

that if he erred at all, it was in overstating the time. In the 
twenty-one years that remain of the present century, if our pop- 
ulation keep on increasing at the rate which it has maintained 
since the institution of the government, with the exception of 
the decade which included the civil war, there will be an 
addition to our present population of something like forty-five 
millions, an addition of some seven millions more than the 
total population of the United States as shown by the census 
of 1870, and nearly half as much again as the present popula- 
tion of Great Britain. There is no question about the ability 
of the United States to support such a population and many 
hundreds of millions more, and, under proper social adjust- 
ments, to support them in increased comfort ; but in view of 
such an increase of population, what becomes of the unappro- 
priated public domain? Practically there will soon cease to be 
any. IL will be a very long time before it is all in use ; but it 
will be a very short time, as we are going, before all that men 
can turn to use will have an owner. 

But the evil effects of making the land of a whole people 
the exclusive property of some, do not wait for the final appro- 
priation of the public domain to show themselves. It is not 
necessary to contemplate them in the future ; we may see them 
in the present. They have grown with our growth, and are 
still increasing. 

We plow new fields, we open new mines, we found new 
cities ; we drive back the Indian and exterminate the buffalo; 
we girdle the land with iron roads and lace the air Avith telegraph 
wires ; we add knowledge to knowledge, and utilize invention 
after invention ; we build schools and endow colleges ; yet it 
becomes no easier for the masses of our people to make a living. 
On the contrary, it is becoming harder. The wealthy class is 
becoming more wealthy ; but the poorer class is becoming more 
dependent. The gulf between the employed and the employer 
is growing wider ; social contrasts are becoming sharper ; as 
liveried carriages appear, so do barefooted children. We are 
becoming used to talk of the working classes and the proper- 
tied classes ; beggars are becoming so common that where it 
was once thought a crime little short of highway robbery to 
refuse food to one who asked for it, the gate is now barred 
and the bulldog loosed, while laws are passed against vagrants 
which suggest those of Henry VIII. 

We call ourselves the most progressive people on earth. 
But what is the goal of our progress, if these are its wayside 
fruits ? 



284 JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. 

These are the results of private property in land — the effects 
of a principle that must act with increasing and increasing 
force. It is not that laborers have increased faster than capi- 
tal ; it is not that population is pressing against subsistence ; it 
is not that machinery has made " work scarce ;" it is not that 
there is any real antagonism between labor and capital — it is 
simply that land is becoming more valuable ; that the terms 
on which labor can obtain access to the natural opportunities 
which alone enable it to produce, are becoming harder and 
harder. The public domain is receding and narrowing; 
Property in land is concentrating. The proportion of our peo- 
ple who have no legal right to the land on which they live is 
becoming steadily larger. 

Says the New York World: ''A non-resident proprietary, 
like that of Ireland, is getting to be the characteristic of large 
farming districts in New England, adding yearly to the nomi- 
nal value of leasehold farms ; advancing yearly the rent de- 
manded, and steadily degrading the character of the tenantry." 
And the Natio7i^ alluding to the same section, says : 
" Increased nominal value of land, higher rents, fewer 
farms- occupied by owners ; diminished product ; lower 
wages ; a more ignorant population ; increasing number of 
women employed at hard, outdoor labor (surest sign of a 
declining civilization), and a steady deterioration in the style 
of farming — these are the conditions described by a 
cumulative mass of evidence that is perfectly irresistible." 

The same tendency is observable in the new States where 
the large scale of cultivation recalls the latifundia that ruined 
ancient Italy. In California a very large proportion of the 
farming land is rented from year to year, at rates varying 
from a fourth to even half the crop. 

The harder times, the lower wages, the increasing pov- 
erty perceptible in the United States are but results of the 
natural laws we have traced — laws as universal and as irre- 
sistible as that of gravitation. We did not establish the 
republic when, in the face of principalities and powers, we 
flung the declaration of the inalienable rights of man ; we 
shall never establish the republic until we practically carr}^ 
out that declaration by securing to the poorest child born 
among us an equal right to his native soil ! We did not 
abolish slavery when we ratified the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment ; to abolish slavery we must abolish private property 
in land ! Unless we come back to first principles, unless we 
recognize natural perceptions of equity, unless we ae- 



PROPERTY IN LAND IN THE UNITED STATES. 285 

knowledge the equal right of all to land, our free insti- 
tutions will be in vain, our common schools will be in vain; 
our disooveries and inventions will but add to the force 
that presses the masses down 1 



BOOK Vlli. 

APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. 



Why hesitate ? Ye are full-bearded men, 

With God-implanted will, and courage if 

Ye dare but show it. Never yet was will 

But found some way or means to work it out, 

Nor e'er did Fortune frown on him who dared. 

Shall we in presence of this grievous w^rong, 

In this supremest moment of all time, 

Stand trembling, cowering, when with one bold stroke 

These groaning millions might be ever free ? — 

And that one stroke so just, so greatly good, 

So level with the happiness of man, 

That all the angels will applaud the deed. 

— -E. R. Taylor. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND INCONSISTENT WITH THE BEST USE 

OF LAND. 

There is a delusion resultiDg from the tendency to con- 
found the accidental with the essential — a delusion which the 
law writers have done their best to extend, and political econ- 
omists generally have acquiesced in, rather than endeavored 
to expose — that private property in land is necessary to the 
proper use of land, and that to again make land common prop- 
erty would be to destroy civilization and revert to barbarism. 

This delusion may be likened to the idea which, according 
to Charles Lamb, so long prevailed among the Chinese after 
the savor of roast-pork had been accidentally discovered by 
the burning down of Ho-ti's hut — that to cook a pig it was 
necessary to set fire to a house. , But, though in Lamb's 
charming dissertation it was required that a sage should arise 
to teach people that they might roast pigs without burning 
down houses, it does not take a sage to see that what is re- 
quired for the improvement of land is not absolute ownership 
of the land, but security for the improvements. This will be 
obvious to whoever will look around him. While there is no 
more necessity for making a man the absolute and exclusive 



OWNERSHIP AND THE USE OF LAND. 287 

owner of land in order to induce him to improve it, than 
there is of burning down a house in order to cook a pig ; 
while the making of land private property is as rude, waste- 
ful, and uncertain a device for securing improvement, as the 
burning down of a house is a rude, wasteful, and uncertain 
device for roasting a pig, we have not the excuse for persist- 
ing in the one that Lamb's Chinamen had for persisting in 
the other. Until the sage arose who invented the rude grid- 
iron (which according to Lamb preceded the spit and oven), 
no one had known or heard of a pig being roasted, except b}?- 
a house being burned. But, among us, nothing is more com- 
mon than for land to be improved by those who do not own 
it. The greater part of the land of Great Britain is cultivated 
by tenants, the greater part of the buildings of London are 
built upon leased ground, and even in the United States the 
same system prevails everywhere to a greater or less extent. 
Thus it is a common matter for use to be separated from 
ownership. 

Would not all this land be cultivated and improved just as 
well if the rent went to the State or municipality, as now, 
when it goes to private individuals 1 If no private ownership 
in land were acknowledged, but all land were held in this way, 
the occupier or user paying rent to the State, would not land 
be used and improved as well and as securely as now ? There 
can be but one answer : Of course it would. Then would 
the resumption of land as common property in nowise inter- 
fere with the proper use and improvement of land. 

What is necessary for the use of land is not its private . 
ownership, but the security of improvements. It is not nec- 
essary to say to a man, " this land is yours," in order to induce 
him to cultivate or improve it. It is only necessary to say to 
him, " whatever your labor or capital produces on this land 
shall be yours." Give a man security that he may reap, and 
he will sow ; assure him of the possession of the house he 
wants to build, and he will build it. These are the natural 
rewards of labor. It is for the sake of the reaping that men 
sow ; it is for the sake of possessing houses that men build. 
The ownership of land has nothing to do with it. 

It was for the sake of obtaining this security, that in the 
beginning of the feudal period so many of the smaller land- 
holders surrendered the ownership of their lands to a military 
chieftain, receiving back the use of them in fief or trust, and 
kneeling bareheaded before the lord, with their hands between 
his hands, swore to serve him with life, and limb, and world Iv 



288 APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. 

honor. Similar instances of the giving up of ownership in 
land for the sake of security in its enjoyment are to be seen 
in Turkey, where a peculiar exemption from taxation and ex- 
tortion attaches to vakouf^ or church lands, and where it is a 
common thing for a land owner to sell his land to a mosque 
for a nominal price, with the understanding that he may 
remain as tenant upon it at a fixed rent. 

It is not the magic of property, as Arthur Young said, 
that has turned Flemish sands into fruitful fields. It is the 
magic of security to labor. This can be secured in other 
ways than making land private property, just as the heat 
necessary to roast a pig can be secured in other ways than 
by burning down houses. The mere pledge of an Irish land- 
lord that for twenty years he would not claim in rent any 
share in their cultivation induced Irish peasants to turn a 
barren mountain into gardens ; on the mere security of a 
fixed ground rent for a term of years the most costly build- 
ings of such cities as London and New York are erected on 
leased ground. If we give improvers such security, we may 
safely abolish private property in land. 

The complete recognition of common rights to land need 
in no way interfere with the complete recognition of indi- 
vidual right to improvements or produce. Two men may 
own a ship without sawing her in half. The ownership of 
a railway may be divided into a hundred thousand shares, 
and yet trains be run with as much system and precision as 
if there were but a single owner. In London, joint stock 
companies have been formed to hold and manage real 
estate. Everything could go on as now, and yet the com- 
mon right to land be fully recognized by appropriating rent 
to the common benefit. There is a lot in the centre of San 
Francisco to which the common rights of the people of that 
city are yet legally recognized. This lot is not cut up into 
infinitesimal pieces nor yet is it an unused waste. It is cov- 
ered with fine buildings, the property of private individuals, 
that stand there in perfect security. The only difference 
between this lot and those around it, is that the rent of the 
one goes into the Common School Fund, the rent of the 
others into private pockets. What is to prevent the land of 
a whole country being held by the people of the country in 
this way ? 

It would be difficult to select any portion of the territory 
of the United States in which the conditions commonly 
taken to necessitate the reduction of land to private owner- 



OWNERSHIP AND THE USE OF LAND. 289 

ship exist in higher degree than on the Uttle islets of St. 
Peter and St. Paul, in the Aleutian Archipelago, acquired by 
the Alaska purchase from Russia. These islands are the 
breeding places of the fur seal, an animal so timid and wary 
that the slightest fright causes it to abandon its accustomed 
resort, never to return. To prevent the utter destruction of 
this fishery, without which the islands are of no use to man, 
it is not only necessary to avoid killing the females and young 
cubs, but even such noises as the discharge of a pistol or the 
barking of a dog. The men who do the killing must be in 
no hurry, but quietly walk around among the seals who line 
the rocky beaches, until the timid animals, so clumsy on land 
but so graceful in water, show no more sign of fear than to 
lazily waddle out of the way. Then those who can be killed 
without diminution of future increase are carefully separated 
and gently driven inland, out of sight and hearing of the 
herds, where they are dispatched with clubs. To throw 
such a fishery as this open to whoever chose to go and kill — 
which would make it to the interest of each party to kill as 
many as they could at the time 'without reference to the future 
— would be to utterly destroy it in a few seasons, as similar 
fisheries in other oceans have been destroyed. But it is not 
necessary, therefore, to make these islands private property. 
Though for reasons greatly less cogent, the great public 
domain of the American people has been made over to 
private ownership as fast as anybody could be got to take it, 
these islands have been leased at a rent of $317,500 per 
year,"* probably not very much less than they could have been 
sold for at the time of the Alaska purchase. They have 
already yielded two millions and a half to the national 
treasury, and they are still, in unimpaired value (for under 
the careful management of the Alaska Fur Company the 
seals increase rather than diminish), the common property of 
the people of the United States. 

So far from the recognition of private property in land 
being necessary to the proper use of land, the contrary is the 
case. Treating land as private property stands in the way of 
its proper use. Were land treated as public property it 
would be used and improved as soon as there was need for its 
use^ ox improvement, but being treated as private property, the 
individual owner is permitted to prevent others from using or 

f The fixed rent under the lease to the Alaska Fur Company is $55,000 a year 
with a payment of $2 62 1-2 on each skin, which on ieo,ooo skins, to which the taJce 
IS limited, amounts to $262,500— a total rent of 1317,500. 
19 



290 APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. 

improving what he cannot or will not use or improve himself. 
When the title is in dispute, the most valuable land lies 
unimproved for years ; in many part's of England improve- 
ment is stopped because, the estates being entailed, no security 
to improvers can be given ; and large tracts of ground which, 
were they treated as public property, would be covered with 
buildings and crops, are kept idle to gratify the caprice of the 
owner. In the thickly settled parts of the United States 
there is enough land to maintain three or four times our pres- 
ent population, lying unused, because its owners are holding 
it for higher prices, and immigrants are forced past this 
unused land to seek homes where their labor will be far less 
productive. In every city, valuable lots may be seen lying 
vacant for the same reason. If the best use of land be the 
test, then private property in land is condemned, as it is con- 
demned by every other consideration. It is as wasteful and 
uncertain a mode of securing the proper use of land, as the 
burning down of houses is of roasting pigs. 



CHAPTER II. 



HOW EQUAL RIGHTS TO THE LAND MAY BE ASSERTED AND 

SECURED. 

We have traced the want and suffering that everywhere 
prevail among the working classes, the recurring paroxysms 
of industrial depression, the scarcity of employment, the 
stagnation of capital, the tendency of wages to the starva- 
tion point, that exhibit themselves more and more strongly 
as material progress goes on, to the fact that the land ow 
which and from which all must live is made the exclusive 
property of some. 

We have seen that there is no possible remedy for these 
evils but the abolition of their cause ; we have seen that 
private property in land has no warrant in justice, but stands 
condemned as the denial of natural right — a subversion of 
the law of nature that as social development goes on must 
condemn the masses of men to a slavery the hardest and 
most degrading. 

We have weighed every objection, and seen that neither 
on the ground of equity or expediency is there anything to 
deter us from making land common property by confiscat- 
ing rent. 



no IV EQUAL RIGHTS MA Y BE ASSERTED. 291 

But a question of method remains. How shall we do it ? 

We should satisfy the law of justice, we should meet all 
economic requirements, by at one stroke abolishing all private 
titles, declaring all land public property, and letting it out to 
the highest bidders in lots to suit, under such conditions as 
would sacredly guard the private right to improvements. 

Thus we should secure, in a more complex state of society, 
the same equality of rights that in a ruder state were secured 
by equal partitions of the soil, and by giving the use of the 
land to whoever could procure the most from it, we should 
secure the greatest production. 

Such a plan, instead of being a wild, impracticable vagary, 
has (with the exception that he suggests compensation to the 
present holders of land — undoubtedly a careless concession 
which he upon reflection would reconsider) been indorsed by no 
less eminent a thinker than Herbert Spencer, who (^' Social 
Statics," Chap. IX, Sec. 8) says of it : 

" Such a doctrine is consistent with the highest state of civilization ; may be car- 
ried out without involving' a community of goods, and need cause no very 
serious revolution in existing arrangements. The change required would simply 
be a change of landlords. Separate ownership vi^ould merge into the joint-stock 
ownership of the public. Instead of being in the possession of individuals, the 
country would be held by the great corporate body — society. Instead of leasing 
his acres from an isolated proprietor, the farmer would lease them from the nation. 
Instead of paying his rent to the agent of Sir John or his Grace, he would pay it to 
an agent or deputy agent of the community. Stewards would be public offi- 
cials instead of private ones, and tenancy the only land tenure. A state of things 
so ordered would be in perfect harmony with tne moral law. Under it all men 
would be equally landlords, all men would be alike free to become tenants. * 
* * Clearly, therefore, on such a system, the earth might be inclosed, occupied 
and cultivated, in entire subordination to the law of equal freedom." 

But such a plan, though perfectly feasible, does not seem 
to me the best= Or rather I propose to accomplish the same 
thing in a simpler, easier, and quieter way, than that of formally 
confiscating all the land and formally letting it out to the 
highest bidders. 

To do that would involve a needless shock to present 
customs and habits of thought — which is to be avoided. 

To do that vv^ould involve a needless extension of govern- 
mental machinery — which is to be avoided. 

It is an axiom of statesmanship, which the successful found- 
ers of tyranny have understood and acted upon — that great 
changes can best be brought about under old forms. We, 
who would free men, should heed the same truth. It is the 
natural method. When nature would make a higher type, 
she takes a lower one and develops it. This, also, is the 
law of social growth. Let us work by it. With the current 



292 AP PLICA TION OF THE RE MED Y. 

we may glide fast and far. Against it, it is hard pulling and 
slow progress. 

I do not propose either to purchase or to confiscate pri- 
vate property in land. The first would be unjust; the second, 
needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if 
they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call 
their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let them 
buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. We may safely 
leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. // is not necessary 
to confiscate land ; it is only necessary to confiscate rent. 

Nor to take rent for public uses is it necessary that the 
State should bother with the letting of lands, and assume the 
chances of the favoritism, collusion, and corruption that 
might involve. It is not necessary that any new machinery 
should be created. The machinery already exists. Instead 
of extending it, all we have to do is to simplify and reduce it. 
By leaving to land owners a percentage of rent, which would 
probably be much less than the cost and loss involved in 
attempting to rent lands through State agency, and by mak- 
ing use of this existing machinery, we may, without jar or 
shock, assert the common right to land by taking rent for 
public uses. 

We already take some rent in taxation. We have only to 
make some changes in our modes of taxation to take it all. 

What I, therefore, propose, as the simple yet sovereign 
remedy, which will raise wages, increase the earnings of capi- 
tal, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative 
employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human 
powers, lessen crime, elevate morals, and taste, and intelli- 
gence, purify government and carry civilization to yet nobler 
heights, is — to appropriate rent by taxation. 

In this way, the State may become the universal landlord 
without calling herself so, and without assuming a single new 
function. In form, the ownership of land would remain just 
as now. No owner of land need be dispossessed, and no 
restriction need be placed upon the amount of land any one 
could hold. For, rent being taken by the State in taxes, land, 
no matter in whose name it stood, or in what parcels it was 
held, would be really common property, and every member of 
the community would participate in the advantages of its 
ownership. 

Now, insomuch as the taxation of rent, or land values, 
must necessarily be increased just as we aboHsh other taxes, 



HOW EQUAL RIGHTS MA Y BE ASSERTED. 293 

we may put the proposition into practical form by propos- 
ing— 

To abolish all taxation save that upon land values. 

As we have seen, the value of land is at the beginning of 
society nothing, but as society develops by the increase of 
population and the advance of the arts, it becomes greater and 
greater. In every civilized country, even the newest, the 
value of the land taken as a whole is sufficient to bear the 
entire expenses of government. In the better developed 
countries it is much more than sufficient. Hence it will not 
be enough to merely place all taxes upon the value of land. 
It will be necessary, where rent exceeds the present govern- 
mental revenues, to commensurately increase the amount 
demanded in taxation, and to continue this increase as society 
progresses and rent advances. But this is so natural and 
easy a matter, that it may be considered as involved, or at 
least understood, in the proposition to put all taxes on the 
value of land. That is the first step, upon which the practi- 
cal struggle must be made. When the hare is once caught 
and killed, cooking him will follow as a matter of course. 
When the common right to land is so far appreciated that all 
taxes are abolished save those which fall upon rent, there is 
no danger of much more than is necessary to induce them to 
collect the public revenues being left to individual landhold- 
ers. 

Experience has taught me (for I have been for some years 
endeavoring to popularize this proposition) that wherever the 
idea of concentrating all taxation upon land values finds 
lodgment sufficient to induce consideration, it invariably 
makes way, but that there are few of the classes most to be 
benefited by it, who at first, or even for a long time after- 
wards, see its full significance and power. It is difficult for 
workingmen to get over the idea that there is a real antago- 
nism between capital and labor. It is difficult for small 
farmers and homestead owners to get over the idea that to 
put all taxes on the value of land would be to unduly tax 
them. It is difficult for both classes to get over the idea that 
to exempt capital from taxation would be to make the rich 
richer, and the poor poorer. These ideas spring from con- 
fused thought. But behind ignorance and prejudice there is 
a powerful interest,^ which has hitherto dominated literature, 
education, and opinion. A great wrong always dies hard, 
and the great wrong which in every civiUzed country condemns 



294 APPLICA TIOAT OF THE RE MED Y. 

the masses of men to poverty and want, will not die without 
a bitter struggle. 

I do not think the ideas of which I speak can be entertained 
by the reader who has followed me thus far ; but inasmuch 
as any popular discussion must deal with the concrete, rather 
than with the abstract, let me ask him to follow me somewhat 
further, that we may try the remedy I have proposed by the 
accepted canons of taxation. In doing so, many incidental 
bearings may be seen that otherwise might escape notice. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PROPOSITION TRIED BY THE CANONS OF TAXATION. 

The best tax by which the public revenues can be raised is 
evidently that which will closest conform to the following 
conditions : 

1. That it bear as lightly as possible upon production — so 
as least to check the increase of the general fund from which 
taxes must be paid and the community maintained. 

2. That it be easily and cheaply collected, and fall as di- 
rectly as may be upon the ultimate payers — so as to take from 
the people as little as possible in addition to what it yields 
the government. 

3. That it be certain — so as to give the least opportunity 
for tyranny or corruption on the part of officials, and the 
least temptation to law-breaking and evasion on the part of 
the taxpayers. 

4. That it bear equally — so as to give no citizen an advan- 
tage or put any at a disadvantage, as compared with others. 

Let us consider what form of taxation best accords with 
these conditions. Whatever it be, that evidently will be the 
best mode in which the public revenues can be raised. 

/. — The Effect of Taxes upon Production. 

All taxes must evidently come from the produce of land 
and labor, since there is no other source of wealth than the 
union of human exertion with the material and forces of 
nature. But the manner in which equal amounts of taxation 
may be imposed may very differently affect the production of 
wealth. Taxation which lessens the reward of the producer 
necessarily lessens the incentive to production ; taxation 



THE CANONS OF TAXATION. 295 

which is conditioned upon the act of production, or the use of 
any of the three factors of production, necessarily discour- 
ages production. Thus taxation which diminishes the earn- 
ings of the laborer or the returns of the capitalist tends to 
render the one less industrious and intelligent, the other less 
disposed to save and invest. Taxation which falls upon the 
processes of production interposes an artificial obstacle to 
the creation of wealth. Taxation which falls upon labor as 
it is exerted, wealth as it is used as capital, land as it is culti- 
vated, will manifestly tend to discourage production much 
more powerfully than taxation to the same amount levied up- 
on laborers, whether they work or play, upon wealth whether 
used productively or unproductively, or upon land whether 
cultivated or left waste. 

The mode of taxation is, in fact, quite as important as the 
amount. As a small burden badly placed may distress a 
horse that could carry with ease a much larger one properly 
adjusted, so a people may be impoverished and their power 
of producing wealth destroyed by taxation, which, if levied in 
another way, could be borne with ease. A tax on date trees, 
imposed by Mohammed Ali, caused the Egyptian fellahs to 
cut down their trees ; but a tax of twice the amount imposed 
on the land produced no such result. The tax of ten per 
cent, on all sales, imposed by the Duke of Alva in the Neth- 
erlands, would, had it been maintained, have all but stopped 
exchange while yielding but little revenue. 

But we need not go abroad for illustrations. The produc- 
tion of wealth in the United States is largely lessened by 
taxation which bears upon its processes. Ship-building, in 
which we excelled, has been all but destroyed, so far as the 
foreign trade is concerned, and many branches of production 
and exchange seriously crippled, by taxes which divert indus- 
try from more to less productive forms. 

This checking of production is in a greater or less degree 
characteristic of most of the taxes by which the revenues of 
modern governments are raised. All taxes upon manufaC' 
tures, all taxes upon commerce, all taxes upon capital, all 
taxes upon improvements, are of this kind. Their tendency 
is the same as that of Mohammed Ali's tax on date trees, 
though their effect may not be so clearly seen. 

All such taxes have a tendency to reduce the production of 
wealth, and should, therefore, never be resorted to when it 
is possible to raise money by taxes which do not check pro- 
duction. This becomes possible as society develops and 



296 APPLICATION OF 7' HE REMEDY. 

wealth accumulates. Taxes which fall upon ostentation 
would simply turn into the public treasury what otherwise 
would be wasted in vain show for the sake of show ; and 
taxes upon wills and devises of the rich would probably have 
little effect in checking the desire for accumulation, which, 
after it has fairly got hold of a man, becomes a blind passion. 
But the great class of taxes from which revenue may be de- 
rived without interference wdth production are taxes upon 
monopolies, for the profit of monopol}^ is in itself a tax levied 
upon production, and to tax it is simply to divert into the 
public coffers what production must in any event pay. 

There are among us various sorts of monopolies. For 
instance, there are the temporary monopolies created by the 
patent and copyright laws. These it would be extremely un- 
just and unwise to tax, inasmuch as they are but recognitions 
of the right of labor to its intangible productions, and con- 
stitute a reward held out to invention and authorship. There 
are also the onerous monopolies alluded to in Chapter TV of 
Book III, which result from the aggregation of capital in 
businesses which are of the nature of monopolies. But while 
it would be extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible, to 
levy taxes by general law so that they would fall exclusively 
on the returns of such monopoly and not become taxes on 
production or exchange, it is much better that these monop- 
olies should be abolished. In large part they spring from 
legislative commission or omission, as for instance the ulti- 
mate reason that San Francisco merchants are compelled to 
pay more for goods sent direct from New York to San Fran- 
cisco by the Isthmus route than it costs to ship them from 
New York to Liverpool or Southampton and thence to San 
Francisco, is to be found in the " protective " laws which 
make it so costly to build American steamers and which for- 
bid foreign steamers to carry goods between American ports. 
The reason that residents of Nevada are compelled to pay as 
much freight from the East as though their goods were car- 
ried to San Francisco and back again, is that the authority 
which prevents extortion on the part of a hack driver is not 
exercised in respect to a railroad company. And it may be 
said generally, that businesses which are in their nature 
monopolies are properly part of the functions of the State, 
and should be assumed by the State. There is the same 
reason why Government should carry telegraphic messages 
as that it should carry letters ; that railroads should belong to 
the public as that common roads should. 



THE CANONS OF TAXATION. 297 

But all other monopolies are trivial in extent as compared 
with the monopoly of land. And the value of land expressing 
tc monopoly, pure and simple, is in every respect fitted for 
taxation. That is to say, while the value of a railroad or 
telegraph line, the price of gas or of a patent medicine, may 
expreb:^ ;tte price of monopoly, it also expresses the exertion of 
labor and capital, but the value of land, or economic rent^ 
as we have seen, is in no part made up from these factors, 
and exprtsses nothing but the advantage of appropriation. 
Taxes levied upon the value of land cannot check production 
in the slighest degree, until they exceed rent, or the value of 
land taken annually, for unlike taxes upon commodities, or 
exchange, or capital, or any of the tools or processes of pro- 
duction, they do not bear upon production. The value of 
land does not expreiis the reward of production, as does the 
value of crops, of cattle, of buildings, or any of the things 
which are styled personal property and improvements. It 
expresses the exchange value of monopoly. It is not in any 
case the creation of the individual who owns the land ; it is 
created by the growth of the community. Hence the com- 
munity can take it all without in any way lessening the incen- 
tive to improvement or in the slighest degi-ee lessening the pro- 
duction of wealth. Taxes may be imposed upon the value of 
land ibtUtil all rent is taken by the State, without reducing the 
wages of labor or the reward of capital one iota ; without in- 
creasing the price of a single commodity, or making produc- 
tion in any way more difficult. 

But more than this. Taxes on the value of land not only 
do not check production as do most odier taxes, but they 
tend to increase production, by destroying speculative rent. 
How speculative rent checks production may be seen not 
only in the valuable land withheld from use, but in the 
paroxysms of industrial depression which, originating in the 
speculative advance in land values, propagate themselves 
over the whole civilized world, everywhere paralyzing indus- 
try, and causing more waste and probably more suffering 
than would a general war. Taxation which would take rent 
for public uses would prevent all this ; while if land were 
taxed to anything near its rental value, no one could afford 
to hold land that he was not using ; and, consequently, land 
not in use would be thrown open to those who would use it. 
Settlement would be closer, and, consequently, labor and 
capital would be enabled to produce more with the same exer. 



298 APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. 

tion. The dog in the manger who, in this country 
especially, so wastes productive power, would be choked 
off. 

There is yet an even more important way by which, 
through its effect upon distribution, the taking of rent to 
public uses by taxation would stimulate the production of 
wealth. But reference to that may be reserved. It is 
sufficiently evident that with regard to production, the tax 
upon the value of land is the best tax that can be 
imposed. Tax manufactures, and the effect is to check 
manufacturing ; tax improvements, and the effect is to lessen 
improvement ; tax commerce, and the effect is to prevent 
exchange ; tax capital, and the effect is to drive it away. 
But the whol6 value of land may be taken in taxation, and 
the only effect will be to stimulate industry, to open new 
opportunities to capital, and to increase the production of 
wealth. 

//. — As to Ease and Cheapness of Collection. 

With, perhaps, the exception of certain licenses and stamp 
duties, which may be made almost to collect themselves, 
but which can be relied on for only a trivial amount of 
revenue, a tax upon land values can, of all taxes, be most 
easily and cheaply collected. For land cannot be hidden or 
carried off ; its value can be readily ascertained, and the 
assessment once made, nothing but a receiver is required for 
collection. 

And as under all fiscal systems some part of the public 
revenues is collected from taxes on land, and the machinery 
for that purpose already exists and could as well be made 
to collect all as a part, the cost of collecting the revenue 
now obtained by other taxes might be entirely saved 
by substituting the tax on land values for all other taxes. 
What an enormous saving might thus be made can be 
inferred from the horde of officials now engaged in collecting 
these taxes. 

This saving would largely reduce the difference between 
what taxation now costs the people and what it yields, but 
the substitution of a tax on land values for all other taxes 
would operate to reduce this difference in an even more 
important way. 

A tax on land values does not add to prices, and is thus 
paid directly by the persons on whom it falls ; whereas, all 
taxes upon things of unfixed quantity increase prices, and in 



THE CANONS OF TAXATION 299 

the course of exchange are shifted from seller to buyer, 
increasing as they go. If we impose a tax upon money 
loaned, as has been often attempted, the lender will charge 
the tax to the borrower, and the borrower must pay it or 
not obtain the loan. If the borrower uses it in his business, 
he in his turn must get back the tax from his customers, 
or his business becomes unprofitable. If we impose a tax 
upon buildings, the users of buildings must finally pay it, 
for the erection of buildings will cease until building rents 
become high enough to pay the regular profit and the tax 
besides. If we impose a tax upon manufactures or imported 
goods, the manufacturer or importer will charge it in a higher 
price to the jobber, the jobber to the retailer, and the 
retailer to the consumer. Now, the consumer, on whom the 
tax thus ultimately falls, must not only pay the amount of 
the tax, but also a profit on this amount to every one who 
has thus advanced it — for profit on the capital he has 
advanced in paying taxes is as much required by each dealer 
as profit on the capital he has advanced in paying for goods. 
Manila cigars cost, when bought of the importer in San 
Francisco, $70 a thousand, of which $14 is the cost of the 
cigars laid down in this port and $56 is the customs duty. 
But the dealer who purchases these cigars to sell again, must 
charge a profit, not on $14, the real cost of the cigars, but 
on $70, the cost of the cigars plus the duty. In this way all 
taxes which add to prices are shifted from hand to hand, 
increasing as they go, until they ultimately rest upon con- 
sumers, who thus pay much more than is received by the 
government. Now, the way taxes raise prices is by increas- 
ing the cost of production, and checking supply. But land 
is not a thing of human production, and taxes upon rent can- 
not check supply. Therefore, though a tax on rent compels 
the land owners to pay more, it gives them no power to 
obtain more for the use of their land, as it in no way tends to 
reduce the supply of land. On the contrary, by compelling 
those who hold land on speculation to sell or let for what 
they can get, a tax on land values tends to increase the 
competition between owners, and thus to reduce the price of 
land. 

Thus in all respects a tax upon land values is the cheapest 
tax by which a large revenue can be raised — giving to the 
Government the largest net revenue in proportion to the 
amount taken from the people. 



30O APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY 

III, — As to Certainty. 

Certainty is an important element in taxation, for just as 
the collection of a tax depends upon the diligence and faith- 
fulness of the collectors and the public spirit and honesty of 
those who are to pay it, will opportunities for tyranny and 
corruption be opened on the one side, and for evasions and 
frauds on the other. 

The methods by which the bulk of our revenues are col- 
lected are condemned on this ground, if on no other. The 
gross corruptions and fraud occasioned in the United States 
by the whisky and tobacco taxes are well known ; the con- 
stant under-valuations of the Custom House, the ridiculous un- 
truthfulness of income tax returns, and the absolute impossi- 
bility of getting anything like a just valuation of personal 
property, are matters of notoriety. The material loss 
which such taxes inflict — the item of cost which this 
uncertainty adds to the amount paid by the people but not 
received by the government — is very great. When, in the days 
of the protective system of England, her coasts were lined 
with an army of men endeavoring to prevent smuggling, and 
another army of men were engaged in evading them, it is 
evident that the maintenance of both armies had to come 
from the produce of labor and capital ; that the expenses 
and profits of the smugglers, as well as the pay and bribes of 
the Custom House officers, constituted a tax upon the in- 
dustry of the nation, in addition to what was received by the 
government. And so, all douceurs to assessors ; all bribes to 
customs officials ; all moneys expended in electing pliable 
officers or in procuring acts or decisions which avoid taxation ; 
all the costly modes of bringing in goods so as to evade 
duties, and of manufacturing so as to evade imposts ; all 
moieties, and expenses of detectives and spies ; all expenses 
of legal proceedings and punishments, not only to the govern- 
ment, but to those prosecuted, are so much which these taxes 
take from the general fund of wealth, without adding to the 
revenue. 

Yet this is the least part of the cost. Taxes which lack the 
element of certainty tell most fearfully upon morals. Our 
revenue laws as a body might well be entitled, " Acts to pro- 
mote the corruption of public officials, to suppress honesty and 
encourage fraud, to set a premium upon perjury and the 
subornation of perjury, and to divorce the idea of law from 
the idea of justice." This is their true character, and they 



THE CANONS OF TAXATION. 301 

succeed admirably. A Custom House oath is a by-word ; 
our assessors regularly swear to assess all property at its full, 
true, cash value, and habitually do nothing of the kind ; men 
who pride themselves on their personal and commercial honor 
bribe officials and make false returns ; and the demoralizing 
spectacle is constantly presented of the same court trying a 
murderer one day and a vendor of unstamped matches the 
next ! 

So uncertain and so demoralizing are these modes of taxation 
that the New York Commission, composed of David A. 
Wells, Edwin Dodge and George W. Cuyler, who investigated 
the subject of taxation in that State, proposed to substitute 
for most of the taxes now levied, other than that on real 
estate, an arbitrary tax on each individual, estimated on the 
rental value of the premises he occupied. 

But there is no necessity of resorting to any arbitraiy 
assessment. The tax on land values, which is the least 
arbitrary of taxes, possesses in the highest degree the element 
of certainty. It may be assessed and collected with a 
deiiniteness that partakes of the immovable and unconceal- 
able character of the land itself. Taxes levied on land may 
be collected to the last cent, and though the assessment of 
land is now often unequal, yet the assessment of personal 
property is far more unequal, and these inequalities in the 
assessment of land largely arise from the taxation of improve- 
ments with land, and from the demoralization that, springing 
from the causes to which I have alluded, affects the whole 
scheme of taxation. Were all taxes placed upon land values, 
irrespective of improvements, the scheme of taxation would 
be so simple and clear, and public attention would be so 
directed to it, that the valuation of taxation could and would 
be made with the same certainty that a real estate agent can 
determine the price a seller can get for a lot. 

IV. — As to Equality. 

Adam Smith's canon is, that " The subjects of every state 
ought to contribute towards the support of the government 
as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities ; 
that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively 
enjoy under the protection of the state." Every tax, he goes 
on to say, which falls only upon rent, or only upon wages, or 
only upon interest, is necessarily unequal. In accordance 
with this is the common idea which our systems of taxing 



302 APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. 

everything vainly attempt to carry out — that every one should 
pay taxes in proportion to his means, or in proportion to his 
income. 

But, waiving all the insuperable practical difficulties in the 
way of taxing every one according to his means, it is evident 
that justice cannot be thus attained. 

Here, for instance, are two men of equal means, or equal 
incomes, one having a large family, the other having no one 
to support but himself. IJpon these two men indirect taxes 
fall very unequally, as the one cannot avoid the taxes on the 
food, clothing, etc., consumed by his family, while the other 
need pay only upon the necessaries consumed by himself. 
But, supposing taxes levied directly, so that each pays the 
same amount. Still there is injustice. The income of the 
one is charged with the support of six, eight or ten persons ; 
the income of the other with that of but a single person. 
And unless the Malthusian doctrine be carried to the extent 
of regarding the rearing of a new citizen as an injury to the 
state, here is a gross injustice. 

But it may be said that this is a difficulty which cannot be 
got over ; that it is Nature herself that brings human beings 
helpless into the world and devolves their support upon the 
parents, providing in compensation therefor her own sweet 
and great rewards. Very well, then, let us turn to 
Nature, and read the mandates of justice in her law. 

Nature gives to labor, and to labor alone. In a very 
Garden of Eden, a man would starve but for human exertion. 
Now, here are two men of equal incomes — that of the one 
derived from the exertion of his labor, that of the other from 
the rent of land. Is it just that they should equally con- 
tribute to the expenses of the state 1 Evidently not. The 
income of the one represents wealth he creates and adds to the 
general wealth of the state ; the income of the other repre- 
sents merely wealth tliat he takes from the general stock, 
returning nothing. The right of the one to the enjoyment of 
his income rests on the warrant of nature, which returns 
wealth to labor ; the right of the other to the enjoyment of 
his income is a mere fictitious right, the creation of municipal 
regulation, which is unknown and unrecognized by nature. 
The father who is told that from his labor he must support 
his children must acquiesce, for such is the natural decree ; 
but he may justly demand that from the income gained by 
his labor not one penny shall be taken, so long as a penny 
remains of incomes which are gained by a monopoly of 



INDORSEMENTS AND OBJECTIONS. 303 

the natural opportunities which Nature offers impartially 
to all, and in which his children have as their birthright an 
equal share. 

Adam Smith speaks of incomes as " enjoyed under the 
protection of the state ; " and this is the ground upon which 
the equal taxation of all species of property is commonly 
insisted upon — that it is equally protected by the state. The 
basis of this idea is evidently that the enjoyment of property 
is made possible by the state — that there is a value created 
and maintained by the community, which is justly called 
upon to meet community expenses. Now, of what values is 
this true ? Only of the value of land. This is a value that 
does not arise until a community is formed, and that, unlike 
other values, grows with the growth of the community. It 
only exists as the community exists. Scatter again the largest 
community, and land, now so valuable, would have no value 
at all. With every increase of population the value of land 
rises ; with every decrease it falls. This is true of nothing 
else save of things which, like the ownership of land, are in 
their nature monopolies. 

The tax upon land values is, therefore, the most just and 
equal of all taxes. It falls only upon those who receive from 
society a peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon them in 
proportion to the benefit they receive. It is the taking by 
the community, for the use of the community, of that value 
which is the creation of the community. It is the application 
of the common property to common uses. When all rent is 
taken by taxation for the needs of the community, then will 
the equality ordained by nature be attained. No citizen will 
have an advantage over any other citizen save as is given by 
his industry, skill, and intelligence ; and each will obtain 
what he fairly earns. Then, but not till then, will labor get 
its full reward, and capital its natural return. 



CHAPTER IV. 

INDORSEMENTS AND OBJECTIONS. 

The grounds from which we have drawn the conclusion 
that the tax on land values or rent is the best method of 
raising public revenues have been admitted expressly or 



304 APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. 

tacitly by all economists of standing, since the determination 
of the nature and law of rent. 

Ricardo says (Chap. X,) " a tax on rent would fall wholly 
on landlords, and could not be shifted to any class of con- 
sumers," for it "would leave unaltered the difference between 
the produce obtained from the least productive land in 
cultivation and that obtained from land of every other 
quality. * ^ A tax on rent would not discourage the cultiva- 
tion of fresh land, for such land pays no rent and would be 
untaxed." 

McCulloch (Note XXIV to Wealth of Nations) declares 
that " in a practical point of view taxes on the rent of land 
are among the most unjust and impolitic that can be imagined," 
but he makes this assertion solely on the ground of his 
assumption that it is practically impossible to distinguish 
in taxation between the sum paid for the use of the soil and 
that paid on account of the capital expended upon it. But, 
supposing that this separation could be effected, he admits 
that the sum paid to landlords for the use of the natural powei s 
of the soil might be entirely swept away by a tax, without 
their having it in their power to thro\v any portion of the 
burden upon any one else, and without affecting the price of 
produce. 

John Stuart Mill not only admits all this, but expressly 
declares the expediency and justice of a peculiar tax on rent, 
asking what right the landlords have to the accession of 
riches that comes to them from the general progress of 
society without work, risk, or economizing on their part, and 
although he expressly disapproves of interfering with their 
claim to the present value of land, he proposes to take the 
whole future increase as belonging to society by natural 
right. 

Mrs. Fawcett, in the little compendium of the writings of 
her husband, entitled, " Political Economy for Beginners," 
says : " The land tax, whether small or great in amount, 
partakes of the nature of a rent paid by the owner of land to 
the state. In a great part of India the land is owned by the 
Government and therefore the land tax is rent paid direct to 
the state. The economic perfection of this system of tenure 
may be readily perceived." 

In fact, that rent should, both on grounds of expediency 
and justice, be the peculiar subject of taxation, is involved in 
the accepted doctrine of rent, and may be found in embryo in 
the works of all economists who have accepted the law of 



INDORSEMENTS AND OBJECTIONS. 305 

Ricardo. That these principles have not been pushed to 
their necessary conclusions, as I have pushed them, evidently 
arises from the indisposition to endanger or offend the 
enormous interest involved in private ownership in land, and 
from the false theories in regard to wages and the cause of 
poverty which have dominated economic thought. 

But there has been a school of economists who plainly 
perceived, what is clear to the natural perceptions of men 
when uninfluenced by habit — that the revenues of the common 
property, land, ought to be appropriated to the common 
service. The French Economists of the last century, headed 
by Quesnay and Turgot, proposed just what I have proposed, 
that all taxation should be abolished save a tax upon the 
value of land. As I am only acquainted with the doctrines of 
Quesnay and his disciples at second hand through the 
medium of the English writers, I am unable to say how far his 
peculiar ideas as to agriculture being the only productive 
avocation, etc., are erroneous apprehensions, or mere peculiar- 
ities of terminology. But of this I am certain from the 
proposition in which his theory culminated — that he saw the 
fundamental relation between land and labor which has since 
been lost sight of, and that he arrived at practical truth, 
though, it may be, through a course of defectively expressed 
reasoning. The causes which leave in the hands of the 
landlord a '' produce net " were by the Physiocrats no better 
explained than the suction of a pump was explained by the 
assumption that nature abhors a vacuum, but the fact in its 
practical relations to social economy was recognized, and the 
benefit which would result from the perfect freedom given to 
industry and trade by a substitution of a tax on rent for all 
the impositions which hamper and distort the application of 
labor was doubtless as clearly seen by them as it is by me. 
One of the things most to be regretted about the French 
Revolution is that it overwhelmed the ideas of the Economists, 
just as they were gaining strength among the thinking 
classes, and were apparently about to influence fiscal legis- 
lation. 

Without knowing anything of Quesnay or his doctrines, 
I have reached the same practical conclusion by a route 
which cannot be disputed and have based it on grounds 
which cannot be questioned by the accepted political 
economy. 

The only objection to the tax on rent or land values 
which is to be met with in standard politico-economic works 
20 



3o6 APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. 

is one which concedes its advantages — for it is, that from the 
difficulty of separation, we might, in taxing the rent of land, 
tax something else. McCulloch, for instance, declares taxes 
on the rent of land to be impolitic and unjust because the 
return received for the natural and inherent powers of the 
soil cannot be clearly distinguished from the return received 
from improvements and meliorations, which might thus be 
discouraged. Macaulay somewhere says that if the admission 
of the attraction of gravitation were inimical to any consider- 
able pecuniary interest, there would not be wanting arguments 
against gravitation — a truth of which this objection is an 
illustration. For admitting that it is impossible to invariably 
separate the value of land from the value of improvements, 
is this necessity of continuing to tax some improvements any 
reason why we should continue to tax all improvements ? If 
it discourage production to tax values which labor and 
capital have intimately combined with that of land, how 
much greater discouragement is involved in taxing not only 
these, but all the clearly distinguishable values which labor 
and capital create ? 

But, as a matter of fact, the value of land can always be 
readily distinguished from the value of improvements. In 
countries like the United States there is much valuable land 
that has never been improved ; and in many of the States 
the value of the land and the value of improvements are 
habitually estimated separately by the assessors, though 
afterwards reunited under the term real estate. Nor where 
ground has been occupied from immemorial times, is there 
any difficulty in getting at the value of the bare land, for 
frequently the land is owned by one person and the buildings 
by another, and when a fire occurs and improvements are 
destroyed, a clear and definite value remains in the land. In 
the oldest country in the world no difficulty whatever can 
attend the separation, if all that be attempted is to separate 
the value of the clearly distinguishable improvements, made 
within a moderate period, from the value of the land, should 
they be destroyed. This, manifestly, is all that justice or 
policy requires. Absolute accuracy is impossible in any 
system, and to attempt to separate all that the human race 
has done from what nature originally provided would be 
as absurd as impracticable. A swamp drained or a hill 
terraced by the Romans constitutes now as much a part of 
the natural advantages of the British Isles as though the 
work had been done by earthquake or glacier. The fact thau 



INDORSEMENTS AND OBJECTIONS. 307 

after a certain lapse of time the value of such permanent 
improvements, would be considered as having lapsed into 
that of the land, and would be taxed accordingly, could have 
no deterrent effect on such improvements, for such works are 
frequently undertaken upon leases for years. The fact is, 
that each generation builds and improves for itself, and not 
for the remote future. And the further fact is, that each 
generation is heir, not only to the natural powers of the 
earth, but to all that remains of the work of past generations. 

An objection of a different kind may however be made. It 
may be said that where political power is diffused, it is highly 
desirable that taxation should fall not on one class, such as 
landowners, but on all ; in order that all who exercise polit- 
ical power may feel a proper interest in economical govern- 
ment. Taxation and representation, it will be said, cannot 
safely be divorced. 

But however desirable it may be to combine with political 
power the consciousness of public burdens, the present 
system certainly does not secure it. Indirect taxes are largely 
raised from those who pay little or nothing consciously. In 
the United States the class is rapidly growing who not only 
feel no interest in taxation, but who have no concern in good 
government. In our large cities elections are in a great 
measure determined not by considerations of public interest, 
but by such influences as determined elections in Rome when 
the masses had ceased to care for anything but bread and the 
circus. 

The effect of substituting for the manifold taxes now im- 
posed a single tax on the value of land would hardly lessen 
the number of conscious taxpayers, for the division of land 
now held on speculation would much increase the number of 
landholders. But it would so equalize the distribution of 
wealth as to raise even the poorest above that condition of 
abject poverty in which public considerations have no weight ; 
while it would at the same time cut down those overgrown 
fortunes which raise their possessors above concern in gov- 
ernment. The dangerous classes politically are the very rich 
and very poor. It is not the taxes that he is conscious of 
paying that gives a man a stake in the country, an interest in 
its government ; it is the consciousness of feeling that he is 
an integral part of the community ; that its prosperity is his 
prosperity, and its disgrace his shame. Let but the citizen 
feel this ; let him be surrounded by all the influences that 
spring from and cluster round a comfortable home, and the 



3o8 APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY, 

community may rely upon him, even to limb or to life. Men 
do not vote patriotically, any more than they fight patriot- 
ically, because of their payment of taxes. Whatever conduces 
to the comfortable and independent material condition of the 
masses will best foster public spirit, will make the ultimate 
governing power more intelligent and more virtuous. 

But it may be asked : If the tax on land values is so ad- 
vantageous a mode of raising revenue, how is it that so many 
other taxes are resorted to in preference by all governments ? 

The answer is obvious : The tax on land values is the only 
tax of any importance that does not distribute itself. It falls 
upon the owners of land, and there is no way in which they 
can shift the burden upon any one else. Hence, a large and 
powerful class are directly interested in keeping down the tax 
on land values and substituting, as a means for raising the 
required revenue, taxes on other things, just as the land own- 
ers of England, two hundred years ago, succeeded in estab- 
lishing an excise, which fell on all consumers, for the dues 
under the feudal tenures, which fell only on them. 

There is, thus, a definite and powerful interest opposed to 
the taxation of land values ; but to the other taxes upon 
which modern governments so largely rely there is no special 
opposition. The ingenuity of statesmen has been exercised 
in devising schemes of taxation which drain the wages of 
labor and the earnings of capital as the vampire bat is said 
to suck the lifeblood of its victim. Nearly all of these taxes 
are ultimately paid by that indefinable being, the consumer ; 
and he pays them in a way which does not call his attention 
to the fact that he is paying a tax — pays them in such small 
amounts and in such insidious modes that he does not notice 
it, and is not likely to take the trouble to remonstrate effect- 
ually. Those who pay the money directly to the tax collector 
are not only not interested in opposing a tax which they so 
easily shift from their own shoulders, but are very frequently 
interested in its imposition and maintenance, as are other 
powerful interests which profit, or expect to profit, by the in- 
crease of prices which such taxes bring about. 

Nearly all of the manifold taxes by which the people of the 
United States are now burdened have been imposed rather 
with a view to private advantage than to the raising of reve- 
nue, and the great obstacle to the simplification of taxation is 
these private interests, whose representatives cluster in the 
lobby whenever a reduction of taxation is proposed, to see 
that the taxes by which they profit are not reduced. The 



lAWORSEMENTS AND OBJECTIONS. 309 

fastening «f a protective tariff upon the United States has 
been due to these influences, and not to the acceptance of 
absurd theories of protection upon their own merits. The 
large revenue which the civil war rendered necessary was the 
golden opportunity of these special interests, and taxes were 
piled up on every possible thing, not so much to raise revenue 
as to enable particular classes to participate in the advan- 
tages of tax-gathering and tax-pocketing. And, since the 
war, these interested parties have constituted the great obsta- 
cle to the reduction of taxation ; those taxes w^hich cost the 
people least having, for this reason, been found easier, to abol- 
ish than those taxes which cost the people most. And, thus, 
even popular governments, which have for their avowed prin- 
ciple the securing of the greatest good to the greatest num- 
ber, are, in a most important function, used to secure a 
questionable good to a small number, at the expense of a 
great evil to the many. 

License taxes are generally favored by those on whom 
they are imposed, as they tend to keep others from entering 
the business ; imposts upon manufactures are frequently grate- 
ful to large manufacturers for similar reasons, as was seen in 
the opposition of the distillers to the reduction of the whisky 
tax ; duties on imports not only tend to give certain producers 
special advantages, but accrue to the benefit of importers or 
dealers who have large stocks on hand ; and so, in the case 
of all such taxes, there are particular interests, capable of 
ready organization and concerted action, which favor the im- 
position of the tax, while, in the case of a tax upon the value 
of land, there is a solid and sensitive interest to steadily and 
bitterly oppose it. 

But if once the truth which I am trying to make clear is 
understood by the masses, it is easy to see how a union of 
political forces, strong enough to carry it into practice, be- 
comes possible. 



BOOK IX. 



EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 



I cannot play upon any stringed instrument ; but I can tell you how of a little 
Tillcige to make a great and glorious city. — Themistocles. 



Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall 
come up the myrtle tree. 

And they shall build houses and inhabit them ; and they shall plant vineyards 
and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit ; they shall not 
plant and another eat. — Isaiah. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE EFFECT UPON THE PRODUCTION OF WEALTH. 

The elder Mirabeau, we are told, ranked the proposition 
of Quesnay, to substitute one single tax on rent (the ifnpost 
unique) for all other taxes, as a discovery equal in utility to the 
invention of writing or the substitution of the use of money 
for barter. 

To whoever will think over the matter, this saying will 
appear an evidence of penetration rather than of extrava- 
gance. The advantages which would be gained by substi- 
tuting for the numerous taxes by which the public revenues 
are now raised, a single tax levied upon the value of land, 
will appear more and more important the more they are con- 
sidered. This is the secret which would transform the little 
village into the great city. With all the burdens removed 
which now oppress industry and hamper exchange, the produc- 
tion of wealth would go on with a rapidity now undreamed of 
This, in its turn, would lead to an increase in the value of land 
— a new surplus which society might take for general purposes. 
And released from the difficulties which attend the collection of 
revenue in a way that begets corruption and renders legisla- 



UPON THE PRODUCTION OF WEALTH. 311 

tion the tool of special interests, society could assume func- 
tions which the increasingcomplexity of life makes it desirable 
to assume, but which the prospect of political demoralization 
under the present system now leads thoughtful men to shrink 
from. 

Consider the effect upon the production of wealth. 

To abolish the taxation which, acting and reacting, now 
hampers every wheel of exchange and presses upon every 
form of industry, would be like removing an immense weight 
from a powerful spring. Imbued with fresh energy, produc- 
tion would start into new life, and trade would receive a 
stimulus which would be felt to the remotest arteries. The 
present method of taxation operates upon exchange like 
artificial deserts and mountains ; it costs more to get goods 
through a custom house than it does to carry them around 
the world. It operates upon energy, and industry, and skill, 
and thrift, like a fine upon those qualities. If I have worked 
harder and built myself a good house while you have been 
contented to live in a hovel, the tax-gatherer now comes 
annually to make me pay a penalty for my energy and industry, 
by taxing me more than you. If I have saved while you 
wasted, I am mulct, while you are exempt. If a man build a 
ship we make him pay for his temerity, as though he had 
done an injury to the state ; if a railroad be opened, down 
comes the tax-collector upon it, as though it were a public 
nuisance ; if a manufactory be erected we levy upon it an 
annual sum which would go far towards making a handsome 
profit. We say we want capital, but if any one accumulate 
it, or bring it among us, we charge him for it as though we 
were giving him a privilege. We punish with a tax the man 
who covers barren fields with ripening grain ; we fine him 
who puts up machinery, and him who drains a swamp. How 
heavily these taxes burden production only those realize who 
have attempted to follow our system of taxation through its 
ramifications, for, as I have before said, the heaviest part of 
taxation is that which falls in increased prices. But mani- 
festly these taxes are in their nature akin to the Egyptian 
Pasha's tax upon date trees. If they do not cause the trees 
to be cut down, they at least discourage the planting. 

To abolish these taxes would be to lift the whole enor- 
mous weight of taxation from productive industry. The 
needle of the seamstress and the great manufactory ; the 
cart-horse and the locomotive ; the fishing boat and the 
steamship ; the farmer's plow and the merchant's stock, would 



312 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

be alike untaxed. All would be free to make or to save, to buy 
or to sell, unfined by taxes, unannoyed by the tax-gatherer. 
Instead of saying to the producer, as it does now, " the more 
you add to the general wealth the more shall you be taxed ! " 
the state would say to the producer, " Be as industrious, as 
thrifty, as enterprising as you choose, you shall have your 
full reward ! You shall not be fined for making two blades 
of grass grow where one grew before ; you shall not be taxed 
for adding to the aggregate wealth." 

And will not the community gain by thus refusing to kill 
the goose that lays the golden eggs ; by thus refraining from 
muzzling the ox that treadeth out the corn ; by thus leaving 
to industry, and thrift, and skill, their natural reward, full and 
unimpaired ? For there is to the community also a natural 
reward. The law of society is, each for all, as well as all for 
each. No one can keep to himself the good he may do, any 
more than he can keep the bad. Every productive enterprise, 
besides its return to those who undertake it, yields collateral 
advantages to others. If a man plant a fruit tree, his gain is 
that he gathers the fruit in its time and season. But in ad- 
dition to his gain, there is a gain to the whole community. 
Others than the owner are benefited by the increased 
supply of fruit ; the birds which it shelters fly far and wide ; 
the rain which it helps to attract falls not alone on his field ; 
and, even to the eye which rests upon it from a distance, it 
brings a sense of beauty. And so with everything else. The 
building of a house, a factory, a ship, or a railroad, benefits 
others besides those who get the direct profits. Nature 
laughs at a miser. He is like the squirrel who buries his 
nuts and refrains from digging them up again. Lo ! they 
sprout and grow into trees. In fine linen, steeped in costly 
spices, the mummy is laid away. Thousands and thousands of 
years thereafter, the Bedouin cooks his food by a fire of its 
encasings, it generates the steam by which the traveler is 
whirled on his way, or it passes into far-off lands to gratify 
the curiosity of another race. The bee fills the hollow tree 
with honey, and along comes the bear or the man. 

Well may the community leave to the individual producer 
all that prompts him to exertion ; well may it let the laborer 
have the full reward of his labor, and the capitalist the full 
return of his capital. For the more that labor and capital 
produce, the greater grows the common wealth in which all 
may share. And in the value or rent of land is this general 
gain expressed in a definite and concrete form. Here is a 



UPON THE PRODUCTION OF WEALTH. 313 

fund which the state may take while leaving to labor and 
capital their full reward. With increased activity of produc- 
tion this would commensurately increase. 

And to shift the burden of taxation from production and ex- 
change to the value or rent of land would not merely be to 
give new stimulur to the production of wealth ; it would be to 
open new opportunities. For under this system no one would 
care to hold land unless to use it, and land now withheld 
from use would everywhere be thrown open to improve- 
ment 

The selling price of land would fall ; land speculation 
would receive its death blow ; land monopolization would no 
longer pay. Millions and millions of acres from which 
settlers are now shut out by high prices would be abandoned 
by their present owners or sold to settlers upon nominal 
terms. And this not merely on the frontiers, but within what 
are now considered well settled districts. Within a hundred 
miles of San Francisco would be thus thrown open land 
snough to support, even with the present modes of cultivation, 
an agricultural population equal to that now scattered from 
the Oregon boundary to the Mexican line — a distance of 800 
miles. In the same degree would this be true of most of the 
Western States and in a great degree of the older Eastern 
States, for even in New York and Pennsylvania is population 
yet sparse as compared with the capacity of the land. And 
even in densely populated England would such a policy throw 
open to cultivation many hundreds of thousands of acres now 
held as private parks, deer preserves, and shooting grounds. 

For this simple device of placing all taxes on the value of 
land would be in effect putting up the land at auction to who- 
ever would pay the highest rent to the state. The demand 
for land fixes its value, and hence, if taxes were placed so as 
to very nearly consume that value, the man who wished to 
hold land without using it would have to pay very nearly 
what it would be worth to any one who wanted to use 
it. 

And it must be remembered that this would apply, not 
merely to agricultural land, but to all land. Mineral land 
would be thrown open to use, just as agricultural land ; and 
in the heart of a city no one could afford to keep land from 
its most profitable use, or on the outskirts to demand more 
for it than the use to which it could at the time be put 
would warrant. Everywhere that land had attained a 
value, taxation, instead of operating, as now, as a fine upon 



314 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

improvement, would operate to force improvement. Who- 
ever planted an orchard, or sowed a field, or built a house, 
or erected a manufactory, no matter how costly, would 
have no more to pay in taxes than if he kept so much land 
idle. The monopolist of agricultural land would be taxed 
as much as though his land were covered with houses, and 
barns, with crops, and with stock. The owner of a vacant 
city lot would have to pay as much for the privilege of keep- 
ing other people off of it until he wanted to use it, as his 
neighbor who has a fine house upon his lot. It would cost 
as much to keep a row of tumble-down shanties upon valua- 
ble land as though it were covered with a grand hotel or a 
pile of great warehouses filled with costly goods. 

Thus, the bonus that wherever labor is most productive 
must now be paid before labor can be exerted would disap- 
pear. The farmer would not have to pay out half his means, 
or mortgage his labor for years, in order to obtain land to 
cultivate ; the builder of a city homestead would not have to 
lay out as much for a small lot as for the house he puts upon 
it ; the company that proposed to erect a manufactory would 
not have to expend a great part of their capital for a site. 
And what would be paid from year to year to the state would 
be in lieu of all the taxes now levied upon improvements, 
machinery and stock. 

Consider the effect of such a change upon the labor mar- 
ket. Competition would no longer be one-sided, as now. 
Instead of laborers competing with each other for employ- 
ment, and in their competition cutting down wages to the 
point of bare subsistence, employers would everywhere be 
competing for laborers, and wages would rise to the fair 
earnings of labor. For into the labor market would have 
entered the greatest of all competitors for the employment 
of labor, a competitor whose demand cannot be satisfied 
until want is satisfied — the demand of labor itself. The 
employers of labor would not have merely to bid against 
other employers, all feeling the stimulus of greater trade and 
increased profits, but against the ability of laborers to 
become their own emplo3^ers upon the natural opportunities 
freely opened to them by the tax which prevented monopo- 
lization. 

With natural opportunities thus free to labor ; with capital 
and improvements exempt from tax, and exchange released 
from restrictions, the spectacle of willing men unable to turn 
their labor into the things they are suffering for would 



UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 315 

become impossible ; the recurring paroxysms which paralyze 
industry would cease ; every wheel of production would be 
set in motion ; demand would keep pace with supply, and 
supply with demand ; trade would increase in every direction, 
and wealth augment on every hand. 



CHAPTER II. 



OF THE EFFECT UPON DISTRIBUTION AND THENCE UPON 

PRODUCTION. 

But great as they thus appear, the advantages of a trans- 
ference of all public burdens to a tax upon the value of land 
cannot be fully" appreciated until we consider the effect upon 
the distribution of wealth. 

Tracing out the cause of the unequal distribution of wealth 
which appears in all civilized countries, with a constant tend- 
ency to greater and greater inequality as material progress 
goes on, we have found it in the fact that, as civilization 
advances, the ownership of land, now in private hands, gives 
a greater and greater power of appropriating the wealth pro- 
duced by labor and capital. 

Thus, to relieve labor and capital from all taxation, direct 
and indirect, and to throw the burden upon rent, would be, 
as far as it went, to counteract this tendency to inequality, 
and, if it went so far as to take in taxation the whole of rent, 
the cause of inequality would be totally destroyed. Rent, 
instead of causing inequality, as now, would then promote 
equality. Labor and capital would then receive the whole 
produce, minus that portion taken by the state in the taxa- 
tion of land values, which, being applied to public purposes, 
w^ould be equally distributed in public benefitSc 

That is to say, the wealth produced in every community 
would be divided into two portions. One part would be 
distributed in wages and interest between individual pro- 
ducers, according to the part each had taken in the work of 
production ; the other part would go to the community as a 
whole, to be distributed in public benefits to all its members. 
In this all would share equally — the weak with the strong, 
young children and decrepit old men, the maimed, the halt, 
and the blind, as well as the vigorous. And justly so — for 
while one part represents the result of individual effort in 



3i6 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

production, the other represents the increased power with 
which the community as a whole aids the individual 

Thus as material progress tends to increase rent, were 
rent taken by the community for common purposes the very 
cause which now tends to produce inequality as material 
progress goes on would then tend to produce greater and 
greater equality. To fully understand this effect, let us 
revert to principles previously worked out. 

We- have seen that wages and interest must everywhere be 
fixed b}^ the rent line or margin of cultivation — that is to say, 
by the reward which labor and capital can secure on land 
for which no rent is paid ; that the aggregate amount of 
wealth, which the aggregate of labor and capital employed 
in production will receive, will be the amount of wealth pro- 
duced (or rather Vv^hen we consider taxes, the net amount), 
minus what is taken as rent. 

We have seen that with material progress, as it is at 
present going on, there is a twofold tendency to the advance 
of rent. Both are to the increase of the proportion of the 
wealth produced which goes as rent, and to the decrease of 
the proportion which goes as w^ages and interest. But the 
first, or natural tendency, which results from the laws of 
social development, is to the increase of rent as a quantity, 
without the reduction of wages and interest as quantities, 
or even with their quantitative increase. The other tendency, 
which results from the unnatural appropriation of land to 
private ownership, is to the increase of rent as a quantity by 
the reduction of wages and interest as quantities. 

Now, it is evident that to take rent in taxation for public 
purposes, which virtually abolishes private ownership in land, ' 
would be to destroy the tendency to an absolute decrease in 
wages and interest, by destroying the speculative monopoliz- 
ation of land and the speculative increase in rent. It would 
be to very largely increase wages and interest, by throwing 
open natural opportunities now monopolized and reducing 
the price of land. Labor and capital would thus not merely 
gain what is now taken from them in taxation, but would 
gain by the positive decline in rent caused by the decrease in 
speculative land values. A new equilibrium would be estab- 
lished at which the common rate of wages and interest would 
be much higher than now. 

But this new equilibrium established, further advances in 
productive power (and the tendency in this direction would 
be greatly accelerated) would result in still increasing rent, 



UPON THE DISTRIBUTION- OF WEALTH. 317 

not at the expense of wages and interest, but by new gains 
in production, which, as rent would be taken by the com- 
munity for public uses, would accrue to the advantage of 
every member of the community. Thus, as material progress 
went on, the condition of the masses would constantly 
improve. Not merely one class would become richer, but all 
would become richer ; not merely one class would have more 
of the necessaries, conveniences, aud elegancies of life, but 
all would have more. For, the increasing power of produc- 
tion, which comes with increasing population, with every new 
discovery in the productive arts, with every labor-saving inven- 
tion, with every extension and facilitation of exchanges, 
could be monopolized by none. That part of the benefit 
which did not go directly to increase the reward of labor and 
capital would go to the state — that is to say, to the whole 
community. With all the enormous advantages, material and 
mental, of a dense population, would be united the freedom 
and equality that can now only be found in new and sparsely- 
settled districts. 

And, then, consider how equalization in the distribution 
of wealth would react upon production, everywhere prevent- 
ing waste, everywhere increasing power. 

If it were possible to express in figures the direct pecuniary 
loss which society suffers from the social mal-adjustments 
which condemn large classes to poverty and vice, the estimate 
would be appalling. England maintains over a million pau- 
pers on official charity ; the city of New York alone spends 
over seven million dollars a year m a similar way. But what 
is spent from public funds, what is spent by charitable socie- 
ties and what is spent in individual charity, would, if aggre- 
gated, be but the first and smallest item in the account. The 
potential earnings of the labor thus going to waste, the cost 
of the reckless, improvident and idle habits thus generated ; 
the pecuniary loss (to consider nothing more) suggested by 
the appalling statistics of mortality, and especially infant mor- 
tality, among the poorer classes ; the waste indicated by the 
gin palaces or low groggeries which increase as po\Terty 
deepens ; the damage done by the vermin of societ}^ that are 
bred of poverty and destitution — the thieves, prostitutes, beg- 
gars, and tramps ; the cost of guarding society against them, 
are all items in the sum which the present unjust and unequal 
distribution of wealth takes from the aggregate which, with 
present means of production, society might enjoy. Nor yet 
shall we have completed the account. The ignorance and 



3i8 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

vice, the recklessness and immorality engendered by the 
inequality in the distribution of wealth show themselves in the 
imbecility and corruption of government ; and the waste of 
public revenues, and the still greater waste involved in the 
ignorant and corrupt abuse of public powers and functions, 
are their legitimate consequences. 

But the increase in wages and the opening of new avenues 
of employment which would result from the appropriation of 
rent to public purposes, would not merely stop these wastes 
and relieve society of these enormous losses ; new power 
would be added to labor. It is but a truism that labor is 
most productive where its wages are largest. Poorly paid 
labor is inefficient labor, the world over. 

What i^ remarked between the efficiency of labor in the 
agricultural districts of England where different rates of 
wages prevail ; what Brassey noticed as between the w^ork 
done by his better paid English navvies and that done by the 
worse paid labor of the continent ; what was evident in the 
United States as between slave labor and free labor ; what 
is seen by the astonishing number. of mechanics or servants 
required in India or China to get anything done, is universally 
true. The efficiency of labor always increases with the habit- 
ual w^ages of labor — for high wages rnean increased self- 
respect, intelligence, hope, and energy. Man is not a machine, 
that will do so much and no more ; he is not an animal, whose 
powers may reach thus far and no further. It is mind, not 
muscle, which is the great agent of production. The physi- 
cal power evolved in the human frame is one of the weakest 
of forces, but for the human intelligence the resistless currents 
of nature flow, and matter becomes plastic to the human v^fill. 
To increase the comforts, and leisure, and independence of 
the masses is to increase their intelligence ; it is to bring 
the brain to the aid of the hand ; it is to engage in the com- 
mon work of life the faculty which measures the animalcule 
and traces the orbits of the stars ! 

Who can say to what infinite powers the wealth producing 
capacity of labor may not be raised by social adjustments 
v/hich will give to the producers of wealth their fair propor- 
tion of its advantages and enjoyments ! With present pro- 
cesses the gain would be simply incalculable, but just as wages 
are high, so do the invention and utilization of improved 
processes and machinery go on with greater rapidity and ease. 
That the wheat crops of Southern Russia are still reaped with 
the scythe and beaten out with the flail is simply because 



UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 31^ 

wages are there so low. American invention, American apti- 
tude for labor-saving processes and machinery are the result 
of the comparatively high wages that have prevailed in the 
United States. Had our producers been condemned to the 
low reward of the Egyptian fellah or Chinese coolie, we would 
be drawing v/ater by hand and transporting goods on the 
shoulders of men. The increase in the reward of labor and 
capital would still further stimulate invention and hasten the 
adoption of improved processes, and these would truly appear, 
what in themselves they really are — an unmixed good. The 
injurious effects of labor-saving machinery upon the working 
classes, that are now so often apparent, and that, in spite of 
all argument, make so many people regard machinery as an 
evil instead of a blessing, would disappear. Every new 
power engaged in the service of man would improve the con- 
dition of all. And from the general intelligence and mental 
activity springing from this general improvement of condition, 
would come new developments of power of which we as yet 
cannot dream. 

But I shall not deny, and do not wish to lose sight of the 
fact, that while thus preventing waste and thus adding to the 
efficiency of labor, the equalization in the distribution of 
wealth that would result from the simple plan of taxation 
that I propose, must lessen the intensity v/ith which wealth is 
pursued. It seems to me that in a condition of society in 
which no one need fear poverty, no one would desire great 
wealth — at least, no one would take the trouble to strive and 
to strain for it as men do now. For, certainl)^, the spectacle 
of men who have only a few years to live, slaving away their 
time for the sake of dying rich, is in itself so unnatural and 
absurd, that in a state of society where the abolition of the 
fear of want had dissipated the envious admiration with which 
the masses of men now regard the possession of great riches, 
whoever would toil to acquire more than he cared to use 
would be looked upon as we would now look on a man who 
would thatch his head with half a dozen hats, or walk around 
in the hot sun with an overcoat on. W^hen every one is sure 
of being able to get enough, no one will care to made a pack- 
horse of himself. 

And though this incentive to production be withdrawn, 
can we not spare it ? Whatever may have been its office in 
an earlier stage of development, it is not needed now. The 
dangers that menace our civilization do not come from the 
weakness of the springs of production. What it suffers from. 



320 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

and what, if a remedy be not applied, it must die from, is 
unequal distribution 1 

Nor would the removal of this incentive, regarded only 
from the standpoint of production, be an unmixed loss. For, 
that the aggregate of production is greatly reduced by the 
greed with which riches are pursued, is one of the most ob- 
trusive facts of modern society. While, were this insane 
desire to ^eX rich at any cost lessened, mental activities now 
devoted to scraping together riches would be translated into 
far higher spheres of usefulness. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE EFFECT UPON INDIVIDUALS AND CLASSES. 

When it is first proposed to put all taxes upon the value of 
land, and thus confiscate rent, all landholders are likely to 
take the alarm, and there will not be wanting appeals to the 
fears of small farm and homestead owners, who will be told 
that this is a proposition to rob them of. their hard-earned 
property. But a moment's reflection will show that this prop- 
osition should commend itself to all whose interests as land- 
holders do not largely exceed their interests as laborers or 
capitalists, or both. And further consideration will show 
that though the large landholders may lose relatively, yet 
even in their case there will be an absolute gain. For, the 
increase in production will be so great that labor and capital 
will gain very much more than will be lost \o private land 
ownership, while in these gains, and in the greater ones in- 
volved in a more healthy social condition, the whole commu- 
nity, including the land owners themselves, will share. 

In a preceding chapter I have gone over the question of 
what is due to the present landholders, and have shown that 
they have no claim to compensation. But there is still an- 
other ground on which we may dismiss all idea of compensa- 
tion. They will not really be injured. 

It is manifest, of course, that the change I propose will 
greatly benefit all those who live by wages, whether of hand 
or of head — ^laborers, operatives, mechanics, clerks, professional 
men of all sorts. It is manifest, also, that it will benefit all 
those who live partly by wages and partly by the earnings of 
their capital — storekeepers, merchants, manufacturers, em- 



UPON INDIVIDUALS AND CLASSES. 321 

ploying or undertaking producers and exchangers of all sorts 
— ^from the peddler or drayman to the railroad or steamship 
owner — and it is likewise manifest that it will increase the 
incomes of those whose incomes are drawn from the earnings 
of capital, or from investments other than in lands, save 
perhaps the holders of government bonds or other securities 
bearing fixed rates of interest, which will probably de-: 
predate in selling value, owing to the rise in the general rate 
of*interest, though the income from them will remain the 
same. 

Take, now, the case of the homestead owner — the me- 
chanic, storekeeper, or professional man who has secured 
himself a house and lot, where he lives, and which he con- 
templates with satisfaction as a place from which his family can- 
not be ejected in case of his death. He will not be injured ; 
on the contrary, he will be the gainer. The selling value of 
his lot will diminish — theoretically it will entirely disappear. 
But its usefulness to him will not disappear. It will serve his 
purpose as well as ever. While, as the value of all other lots 
will diminish or disappear in the same ratio, he retains the 
same security of always having a lot that he had before. 
That is to say, he is a loser only as the man who has bought 
himself a pair of boots may be said to be a loser by a subse- 
quent fall in the price of boots. His boots will be just as 
useful to him, and the next pair of boots he can get cheaper. 
So, to the homestead owner, his lot will be as useful, and 
should he look forward to getting a larger lot, or having his 
children, as they grow up, get homesteads of their own, he 
will, even in the matter of lots, be the gainer. And in the 
present, other things considered, he will be much the gainer. 
For though he will have more taxes to pay upon his land, he 
will be released from taxes upon his house and improve- 
ments, upon his furniture and personal property, upon all that 
he and his family eat, drink, and wear, while his earnings will 
be largely increased by the rise of wages, the constant em- 
ployment, and the increased briskness of trade. His only 
loss will be if he wants to sell his lot without getting an- 
other, and this will be a small loss compared with the great 
gain. 

And so with the farmer. I speak not now of the farmers 
who never touch the handles of a plow, who cultivate thou- 
sands of acres and enjoy incomes like those of the rich South- 
ern planters before the war ; but of the working farmers who 
constitute such a large class in the United States — men v/ho 
21 



322 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

own small farms, which they cultivate with the aid of theif 
boys, and perhaps some hired help, and who in Europe would 
be called peasant projorietors. Paradoxical as it may appear 
to these men until they understand the full bearings of the 
proposition, of all classes above that of the mere laborer they 
have most to gain by placing all taxes upon the value of land. 
That they do not now get as good a living as their hard work 
ought to give them, they generally feel, though they may not 
be able to trace the cause. The fact is that taxation, as now 
levied, falls on them with peculiar severit}^ They are taxed 
on all their improvements — houses, barns, fences, crops, stock. 
The personal property which they have cannot be as readily 
concealed or undervalued as can the more valuable kinds 
which are concentrated in the cities. They are not only taxed 
on personal property and improvements, which the owners of 
unused land escape, but their land is generally taxed at a 
higher rate than land held on speculation, sim.ply because it 
is improved. But further than this, all taxes imposed on 
commodities, and especially the taxes which, like our protect- 
ive duties, are imposed with a view of raising the prices of 
commodities, fall on the farmer without mitigation. For in a 
country like the United States, which exports agricultural 
produce, the farmer cannot be protected. Whoever gains, he 
must lose. Some years ago the Free Trade League of New 
York published a broadside containing cuts of various articles 
of necessity marked with the duties imposed by the tariff, and 
which read something in this wise : " The farmer rises in the 
morning and draws on his pantaloons taxed 40 per cent, and 
his boots taxed 30 per cent., striking a light with a match 
taxed 200 per cent," and so on, following him through the 
day and through life, until, killed by taxation, he is lowered 
into the grave with a rope taxed 45 per cent. This is but a 
graphic illustration of the manner in which such taxes 
ultimately fall. The farmer would be a great gainer by the 
substitution of a single tax upon the value of land for all 
these taxes, for the taxation of land values would fall with 
greatest weight, not upon the agricultural districts, where land 
values are comparatively small, but upon the towns and cities 
where land values are high ; whereas taxes upon personal 
property and improvements f?ll as heavily in the country as 
in the city. And in sparsely settled districts there would be 
hardly any taxes at all for the farmer to pay. For taxes, 
being levied upon the value of the bare land, would fall as 
heavily upon unimproved as upon improved land. Acre for 



UPON INDIVIDUALS AND CLASSES. 323 

acre, the improved and cultivated farm, with its buildings, 
fences, orchards, crops, and stock could be taxed no more 
than unused land of equal quality. The result would be that 
speculative values would be kejDt down, and that cultivated 
and improved farms would have no taxes to pay until the 
country around them had been well settled. In fact, para- 
doxical as it may at first seem to them, the effect of putting 
all taxation upon the value of land would be to relieve the 
harder working farmers of all taxation. 

But the great gain of the working farmer can only be seen 
when the effect upon the distribution of population is consid- 
ered. The destruction of speculative land values would tend 
to diffuse population where it is too dense and to concentrate 
it where it is too sparse ; to substitute for the tenement house, 
homes surrounded by gardens, and to fully settle agricultural 
districts before people were driven far from neighbors to look 
for land. The people of the cities would thus get more of the 
pure air and sunshine of the country, the people of the coun- 
try more of the economies and social life of the city. If, as 
is doubtless the case, the application of machinery tends to 
large fields, agricultural population will assume the primitive 
form and cluster in villages. The life of the average farmer 
is now unnecessarily dreary. He is not only compelled to 
work early and late, but he is cut off by the sparseness of 
population from the conveniences, the amusements, the edu- 
cational facilities, and the social and intellectual opportuni- 
ties that come wdth the closer contact of man with man. He 
would be far better off in all these respects, and his labor 
would be far more productive, if he and those around him 
held no more land than they wanted to use.f While his 
children, as they grew up, would neither be so impelled to 
seek the excitement of a city nor would they be driven so far 
away to seek farms of their own. Their means of living 
would be in their own hands, and at home. 

In short, the working farmer is both a laborer and a capi- 
talist, as well as a land owner, and it is by his labor and capi- 
tal that his living is made. His loss would be nominal \ his 
gain would be real and great. 

t Besides the enormous increase in tlie productive povv^er of labor which would 
result from the better distribution of population, there would be also a similar econ- 
omy in the productive pov/er of land. The concentration of population in cities 
fed by the exhaustive cultivation of larg'e, sparsely populated areas, results in a 
literal draining into the sea of the elements of fertility. How enormous this v/aste 
is may be seen from the calculations that have been made as to the sev/ag-e of our 
cities, and its practical result is to be seen in the diminishing productiveness of 
agriculture in large sections. In a great part of the United States we are steadily 
exhausting our lands. 



324 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

In varying degrees is this true of all landholders. Many 
landholders are laborers of one sort or another. And it 
would be hard to find a land owner not a laborer, who is not 
also a capitalist — while the general rule is, that the larger the 
land owner the greater the'^ capitalist. So true is this that in 
common thought the characters are confounded. Thus to put 
all taxes on the value of land, while it would be to largely 
reduce all great fortunes, would in no case leave the rich 
man penniless. The Duke of Westminster, who owns a con- 
siderable part of the site of London, is probably the richest 
land owner in the world. To take all his ground rents by 
taxation would largely reduce his enormous income, but would 
still leave him his buildings and all the income from them, 
and doubtless much personal property in various other shapes. 
He would still have all he could by any possibility enjoy, and 
a much better state of society in which to enjoy it. 

So would the Astors of New York remain very rich. And 
so, I think, it will be seen throughout — this measure would 
make no one poorer but such as could be made a great deal 
poorer wdthout being really hurt. It would cut down great 
fortunes, but it would impoverish no one. 

Wealth would not only be enormously increased ; it would 
be equally distributed. I do not mean that each individual 
would get the same amount of wealth. That would not be equal 
distribution, so long as different individuals have different 
powers and different desires. But I mean that wealth would be 
distributed in accordance with the degree in which the industry, 
skill, knowledge, or prudence of each contributed to the com- 
mon stock. The great cause Avhich concentrates wealth in the 
hands of those who do not produce, and takes it from the hands 
of those who do, would be gone. The inequalities that contin- 
ued to exist would be those of nature, not the artificial ine- 
qualities produced by the denial of natural law. The non- 
producer would no longer roll in luxury while the producer 
got but the barest necessities of animal existence. 

The monopoly of the land gone, there need be no fear of 
large fortunes. For then the riches of any individual must 
consist of wealth, properly so called — of wealth, which is the 
product of labor, and which constantly tends to dissipation, 
for national debts, I imagine, would not long survive the abo- 
lition of the system from which they spring. All fear of great 
fortunes might be dismissed, for when every one gets what he 
fairly earns, no one can get more than he fairly earns. How 
many men are there who fairly earn a million dollars ? 



UPON SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 325 



CHAPTER IV. 

OF THE CHANGES THAT WOULD BE WROUGHT IN SOCIAL 
ORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 

We are only dealing with general principles. There are 
some matters of detail — such as those arising from the 
division of revenues between local and general governments- — 
which upon application of these principles would come up, 
but these it is not necessary here to discuss. When once 
principles are settled, details will be readily adjusted. 

Nor without too much elaboration is it possible to notice 
all the changes which would be wrought, or would become 
possible, by a change which would re-adjust the very founda- 
tion of society, but to some main features let me call atten- 
tion. 

Noticeable among these is the great simplicity which would 
become possible in government. To collect taxes, to prevent 
and punish evasions, to check and countercheck revenues 
drawn from so many distinct sources, now make up probably 
three-fourths, perhaps seven-eighths of the business of govern- 
ment, outside of the preservation of order, the maintenance 
of the military arm, and the administration of justice. An 
immense and complicated network of governmental machinery 
would thus be dispensed with. 

In the administration of justice there would be a like 
saving of strain. Much of the civil business of our courts 
arises from disputes as to ownership of land. These would 
cease when the state was virtually acknowledged as the sole 
owner of land, and all occupiers became merely rent-paying 
tenants. The growth of morality consequent upon the 
cessation of want would tend to a like diminution in other 
civil business of the courts, which could be hastened by the 
adoption of the common sense proposition of Bentham to 
abolish all laws for the collection of debts and the enforce- 
ment of private contracts. The rise of wages, the opening 
of opportunities for all to make an easy and comfortable 
living, would at once lessen and would soon eliminate from 
society the thieves, swindlers, and other classes of criminals 
who spring from the unequal distribution of wealth. Thus 



336 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

the administration of the ciiminal law, with ah its parapher- 
naha of pohcemen, detectives, prisons and penitentiaries, 
would, like the administration of the civil law, cease to make 
such a drain upon the vital force and attention of society. 
We should get rid, not only of many judges, baihffs, clerks 
and prison-keepers, but of the great host of law3^ers who are 
now maintained at the expense of producers ; and talent now 
wasted in legal subtleties would be turned to higher pursuits. 

The legislative, judicial, and executive functions of govern- 
ment would in this way be vastly simplified. Nor can I 
think that the public debts and the standing armies, which 
are historically the outgrowth of the change from feudal to 
allodial tenures, would long remain after the reversion to the 
old idea that the land of a country is the common right of 
the people of the country. The former could readily be paid 
off by a tax which would not lessen the wages of labor no/ 
check production, and the latter the growth of intelligence 
and independence among the masses (aided, perhaps, by the 
progress of invention, which is revolutionizing the military 
art) must soon cause to disappear. 

Society would thus approach the ideal of Jeffersonian 
democracy, the promised land of Herbert Spencer, the aboli- 
tion of government. But of government only as a directing 
and repressive power. It would at the same time and 
in the same degree, become possible for it to realize the 
dream of socialism. All this simplification and abrogation of 
the present functions of government would make possible 
the assumption of certain other functions which are now 
pressing for recognition. Government could take upon 
itself the transmission of messages by telegraph, as well as by 
mail, of building and operating railroads, as well as of 
opening and maintaining common roads. With present, 
functions so simplified and reduced, functions such as these\ 
could be assumed without danger or strain, and would be 
under the supervision of public attention, which is now 
distracted. There would be a great and increasing surplus 
revenue from the taxation of land values, for material 
progress, which would go on with greatly accelerated rapidity, 
would tend constantly to increase rent. This revenue 
arising from the common property could be applied to the 
common benefit, as were the revenues of Sparta. We might 
not establish public tables — they would be unnecessary ; but 
we could establish public baths, museums, libraries, gardens, 



UPON SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 327 

lecture rooms, music and dancing halls, theaters, universities, 
technical schools, shooting galleries, play grounds, gymna- 
siums, etc. Heat, light, and . m.otive power, as well as 
water, might be conducted through our streets at public 
expense ; our roads be lined with fruit trees ; discoverers 
and inventors revv^arded, scientific investigations supported ; 
and in a thousand ways the public revenues made to foster 
efforts for the public benefit. We should reach the ideal of 
the socialist, but not through governmental repression* 
Government would change its character, and would become 
the administration of a great co-operative society. It would 
become merely the agency by which the common property 
was administered for the common benefit. 

Does this seem impracticable ? Consider for a moment 
the vast changes that would be wrought in social life by a 
change which would assure to labor its full reward ; which 
would banish want and the fear of want ; and give to the 
humblest freedom to develop in natural symmetry. 

In thinking of the possibilities of social organization, we 
are apt to assume that greed is the strongest of human 
motives, and that systems of administration can only be 
safely based upon the idea that the fear of punishment is 
necessary to keep men honest — that selfish interests are 
always stronger than general interests. Nothing could be 
further from the truth. 

From whence springs this lust for gain, to gratify which 
men tread everything pure and noble under their feet ; to 
which they sacrifice all the higher possibilities of life ; which 
converts civility into a hollow pretense, patriotism into a 
sham, and religion into hypocrisy ; which makes so much of 
civilized existence an Ishmaelitish warfare, of which the 
weapons are cunning and fraud .? 

Does it not spring from the existence of want ? Carlyle 
somewhere says that poverty is the hell of which the modern 
Englishman is most afraid. And he is right. Poverty is the 
open-mouthed, relentless hell which yawns beneath civihzed 
society. And it is hell enough. The Vedas declare no truer 
thing than when the wise crow Bushanda tells the eagle- 
bearer of Vishnu that the keenest pain is in poverty. For 
poverty is not merely deprivation ; it means shame, degrada- 
tion ; the searing of the most sensitive parts of our moral 
and mental nature as with hot irons ; the denial of the strong:- 
est mipulses and the sweetest affections ; the wrenching of 
the most vital nerves. You love your wife, you love your 



328 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

children ; but would it not be easier to see them die than to 
see them reduced to the pinch of want in which large classes 
in every highly civilized community live ? The strongest of 
animal passions is that with which we cling to life, but it is 
an every-day occurrence in civilized societies for men to put 
poison to their mouths or pistols to their heads from fear of 
poverty, and for one who docs this there are probably a hun- 
dred who have the desire, but are restrained by instinctive 
shrinking, by religious considerations, or by family ties. 

From this hell of poverty it is but natural that men should 
make every effort to escape. With the impulse to self- 
preservation and self-gratification combine nobler feelings, 
and love as well as fear urges in the struggle. Many a man 
does a mean thing, a dishonest thing, a greedy and grasping 
and unjust thing, in the effort to place above want, or the fear 
of want, mother or wife or children. 

And out of this condition of things arises a public opinion 
which enlists, as an impelling power in the struggle to grasp 
and to keep, one of the strongest — perhaps with many men 
the very strongest — springs of human action. The desire 
for approbation, the feeling that urges us to win the respect, 
admiration, or sympathy of our fellows, is instinctive and 
universal. Distorted sometimes into the most abnormal man- 
ifestations, it may yet be everywhere perceived. It is potent 
with llie veriest savage, as with the most highly cultivated 
member of the most polished society ; it shows itself with the 
first gleam of intelligence, and persists to the last breath. It 
triumphs over the love of ease, over the sense of pain, over 
the dread of death. It dictates the most trivial and the most 
important actions. 

The child just beginning to toddle or to talk will make new 
efforts as its cunning little tricks excite attention and laugh- 
ter ; the dying master of the world gathers his robes around 
him, that he may pass away as becomes a king ; Chinese 
mothers will deform their daughters' feet by cruel stocks, 
European women will sacrifice their own comfort and the 
comfort of their families to similar dictates of fashion ; the 
Polynesian, that he may excite admiration by his beautiful tat- 
too, will hold himself still while his flesh is torn by sharks' 
teeth ; the North American Indian, tiid to the stake, will bear 
the most fiendish tortures without a moan, and that he may- 
be respected and admired as a great brave, will taunt his tor- 
menters to new cruelties. It is this that leads the forlorn 
hope ; it is this that trims the lamp of the pale student ; it is 



UPON SOCIAL ORGANIZA TION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 339 

this that impels men to strive, to strain, to toil, and to die. It 
is this that raised tlie pyramids and that fired the Ephesian 
dome. 

Now, men admire what they desire. How sweet to the 
storm-stricken seems the safe harbor ; food to the hungry, 
drink to the thirsty, warmth to the shivering, rest to the weary, 
power to the weak, knowledge to him in whom the intellec- 
tual yearnings of the soul have been aroused. And thus the 
sting of want and the fear of want make men admire above 
all things the possession of riches, and to become wealthy is 
to become respected, and admired, and influential. Get 
money — honestly if you can, but at any rate get money ! 
This is the lesson that society is daily and hourly dinning in 
the ears of its members. Men instinctively admire virtue 
and truth, but the sting of want and the fear of want make 
them even more strongly admire the rich and sympathize with 
the fortunate. It is well to be honest and just, and men will 
commend it ; but he who by fraud and injustice gets him a 
million dollars will have more respect, and admiration, and 
influence, more eye service and lip service, if not heart ser- 
vice, than he who refuses it. The one may have his reward 
in the future ; he may know that his name is writ in the Book 
of Life, and that for him is the white robe and the palm 
branch of the victor against temptation ; but the other has 
his reward in the present. His name is writ in the list of 
*' our substantial citizens ; " he has the courtship of men and 
the flattery of women ; the best pew in the church and the 
personal regard of the eloquent clergyman who in the name 
of Christ preaches the Gospel of Dives, and tones down into 
a meaningless flower of eastern speech the stern metaphor of the 
camel and the needle's eye. He may be a patron of arts, a 
Msecenas to men of letters ; may profit by the converse of the 
intelligent, and be polished by the attrition of the refined. 
His alms may feed the poor, and help the struggling, and 
bring sunshine into desolate places ; and noble public institu- 
tions commemorate, after he is gone, his name and his fame. 
It is not in the guise of a hideous monster, with horns and 
tail, that Satan tempts the children of men, but as an angel 
of light. His promises are not alone of the kingdoms of the 
world, but of mental and moral principalities and powers. 
He appeals not only to the animal appetites, but to the crav- 
ings that stir in man because he is more than an animal. 

Take the case of those miserable " men with muck-rakes," 
who are to be seen in every community as plainly as Bunyan 



330 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

saw their type in his vision — who, long after they have accumii« 
lated wealth enough to satisfy every desire, go on working, 
scheming, striving to add riches to riches. It was the desire 
" to be something; " nay, in many cases, the desire to do 
noble and generous deeds, that started them on a career of 
money getting. And what compels them to it long after 
every possible need is satisfied, what urges them still with 
unsatisfied and ravenous greed, is not merely the force of 
^rannous habit, but the subtler gratifications which the pos- 
session of riches gives — the sense of power and influence, 
the sense of being looked up to and respected, the sense that 
their wealth not merely raises them above want, but makes 
them miCn of mark in the community in which they live. It 
is this that makes the rich man so loth to part with his money, 
so anxious to get more. 

Against temptations that thus appeal to the strongest im- 
pulses of our nature, the sanctions of law and the precepts of 
religion can effect but little ; and the wonder is, not that men 
are so self-seeking, but that they are not much more so. 
That under present circumstances men are not more grasping, 
more unfaithful, more selfish than they are, proves the good- 
ness and fruitfulness of human nature, the ceaseless flow of 
the perennial fountains from v/hich its moral qualities are 
fed. All of us have mothers ; most of us have children, and 
so faith, and purity, and unselfishness can never be utterly 
banished from the world, howsoever bad ■ be social adjust- 
ments. 

But whatever is potent for evil may be made potent for 
good. The change I have proposed would destroy the condi- 
tions that distort impulses in themselves beneficent, and 
would transmute the forces which now tend to disintegrate 
society into forces which would tend to unite and purify it. 

Give labor a free field and its full earnings ; take for the 
benefit of the whole community that fund which the growth 
of the community creates, and want and the fear of v/ant 
would be gone. The springs of production would be set free, 
and the enormous increase of v/ealth would give the poorest 
ample comfort. Men would no more worry about finding- 
employment than they Vv^orry about finding air to breathe; they 
need have no more care about physical necessities than do the 
lilies of the field. The progress of science, the march of 
invention, the diffusion of knowledge, would bring their 
benefits to all. 

With this abolition of want and the fear of want, the ad^ 



UPON SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 331 

miration of riches would decay, and men would seek the 
respect and approbation of their fellows in other modes than 
by the acquisition and display of wealth. In this way there 
would be brought to the management of public affairs and the 
administration of common funds, the skill, the attention, the 
fidelity, and integrity that can now only be secured for private 
interests, and a railroad or gas works might be operated on 
public account, not only more economically and efficiently 
than as at present, under joint stock management, but as ecc 
nomically and efficiently as would be possible under a single 
ownership. The prize of the Olympian games, that called 
forth the most strenuous exertions of all Greece, was but a 
wreath of wild olive ; for a bit of ribbon men have over and 
over again performed services no money could have 
bought. 

Short-sighted is the philosophy which counts on selfishness 
as the master motive of human action. It is blind to facts of 
which the world is full. It sees not the present, and reads 
not the past aright. If you would move men to action, to 
what shall you appeal ? Not to their pockets, but to their 
patriotism ; not to selfishness, but to sympathy. Self-interest 
isj as it were, a mechanical force — potent, it is true ; capable 
of large and wide results. But there is in human nature what 
may be likened to a chemical force; which melts and fuses 
and overwhelms ; to which nothing seems impossible. "All 
that a man hath will he give for his life" — that is self-interest. 
But in loyalty to higher impulses men will give even 
life. 

It is not selfishness that enriches the annals of every people 
with heroes and saints. It is not selfishness that on every 
page of the world's history bursts out in sudden splendor of 
noble deeds or sheds the soft radiance of benignant lives. It 
was not selfishness that turned Gautama's back to his royai 
home or bade the Maid of Orleans lift the sword from the 
altar ; that held the Three Hundred in the Pass of 
Thermopylae, or gathered into Wi'nkelried's bosom the sheaf of 
spears ; that chainedVincent de Paul to the bench of the galley, 
or brought little starving children during the Indian famine 
tottering to the relief stations with yet weaker starvelings in 
their arms ! Call it religion, patriodsm, sympathy, the en- 
thusiasm for humanity, or the love of God — -give it what 
name you will ; there is yet a force which overcomes and 
drives out selfishness ; a force which is the electricity of the 
moral universe ; a force beside which all others are weak. Every- 



332 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

where that men have Hved it has shown its power, and to-day, 
as ever, the world is full of it. To be pitied is the man who 
has never seen and never felt it. Look around ! among com- 
mon men and women, amid the care and the struggle of daily 
life in the jar of the noisy street and amid the squalor where 
want hides— every here and there is the darkness lighted 
with the tremulous play of its lambent flames. He who has 
not seen it has walked with shut eyes. He who looks may see, 
as says Plutarch, that " the soul has a principle of kindness 
in itself, and is born to love, as well as to perceive, think, or 
remember." 

And this force of forces— that now goes to waste oi 
assumes perverted forms — we may use for the strengthening, 
and building up and ennobling of society, if we but will, just as 
we now use physical forces that once seemed but powers of dc' 
struction. All we have to do is but to give it freedom and scope. 
The wrong that produces inequality ; the wrong that in the 
midst of abundance tortures men with want or harries them 
with the fear of want ; that stunts them physically, degrades 
them intellectually, and distorts them morally, is what alone 
prevents harmonious social development. For " all that is 
from the gods is full of providence. We are made for co- 
operation — ^like feet, like hands, like eyebrows, like the row^ 
of the upper and lower teeth." 

There are people into whose heads it never enters to con- 
ceive of any better state of society than that which now ex- 
ists — who imagine that the idea that there could be a state ot 
society in which greed would be banished, prisons stand 
empty, individual interests be subordinated to general in- 
terests, and no one seek to rob or to oppress his neighbor, is 
but the dream of impracticable dreamers, fox whom these 
practical level-headed men who pride themselves on rec* 
ognizing facts as they are, have a hearty contempt. But 
such men — though some of them write books, and some of 
them occupy the chairs of universities, and some of them 
stand in pulpits — do not think. If they were accustomed 
to dine in such eating houses as are to be found in the lower 
quarters of London and Paris, where the knives and forks are 
chained to the table, they would deem it the natural, ineradi- 
cable disposition of man to carry off the knife and fork with 
which he has eaten. 

Take a company of well-bred men and women dining 
together. There is no struggling for food, no attempt on 
the part of anyone to get more than his neighbor ; no attemp? 



UPON SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 333 

to gorge or to carry off. On the contrary, each one is 
anxious to help his neighbor before he partakes himself ; 
to offer to others the best rather than pick it out for him- 
self ; and should any one show the slightest disposition to 
prefer the gratification of his own appetite to that of the 
others, or in any way to act the pig or pilferer, the swift 
and heavy penalty of social contempt and ostracism would 
show how such conduct is reprobated by common opinion. 
All this is so common as to excite no remark, as to seem 
the natural state of things. Yet it is no more natural 
that men should not be greedy of food than that they 
should not be greedy of wealth. They are greedy of food 
when they are not assured that there will be a fair and 
equitable distribution which will give each enough. But 
when these conditions are assured, they cease to be greedy 
of food. And so in society, as at present constituted, men 
are greedy of wealth because the conditions of distribution 
are so unjust that instead of each being sure of enough, 
many are certain to be condemned to want. It is the 
" devil catch the hindmost" of present social adjustments 
that causes the race and scramble for wealth, in which 
all considerations of justice, mercy, religion, and sentiment 
are trampled under foot ; in which men forget their own 
souls, and struggle to the very verge of the grave for what 
they cannot take beyond. But an equitable distribution of 
wealth, that would exempt all from the fear of want, 
would destroy the greed of wealth, just as in polite society 
the greed of food has been destroyed.- 

On the crowded steamers of the early California lines 
there was often a marked difference between the manners 
of the steerage and the cabin, which illustrates this prin- 
ciple of human nature. An abundance of food was pro- 
vided for the steerage as for the cabin, but in the former 
there were no regulations which insured efficient service 
and the meals became a scramble. In the cabin, on the 
contrary, where each was allotted his place and there was 
no fear that everyone would not get enough, there was 
no such scrambling and waste as were witnessed in the 
steerage. The difference was not in the character of the 
people, but simply in this fact. The cabin passenger 
transferred to the steerage would participate in the greedy 
rush, and the steerage passenger transferred to the cabin 
would at once become decorous and polite. The same 
difference would show itself in society in general were 



334 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY, 

the present unjust distribution of v/ealth replaced by a 
just distribution. 

Consider this existing fact of a cultivated and refined 
society, in which all the- coarser passions are held in 
check, not by force, not by law, but by common opinion 
and the mutual desire of pleasing. If this is possible 
for a part of a community, it is possible for a whole 
community. There are states of society in which every 
one has to go armed — in which every one has to hold 
himself in readiness to defend person and property with 
the strong hand. If we have progressed beyond that, 
we may progress still further. 

But it may be said, to banish want and the fear of 
want, would be to destroy the stimulus to exertion ; men 
would become simply idlers, and such a happy state of 
general comfort and content would be the death of 
progress. This is the old slaveholders' argument, that 
men can only be driven to labor with the lash. Nothing 
is more untrue. 

Want might be banished, but desire would remain. Man 
is the unsatisfied animal. He has but begun to explore, and 
the universe lies before him. Each step that he takes opens 
new vistas and kindles new desires. He is the constructive 
animal ;* he builds, he improves, he invents, and puts 
together, and the greater the thing he does, the greater the 
thing he wants to do. He is more than an animal. Whatever 
be the intelligence that breathes through nature, it is in that 
likeness that man is Tuade. The steamship, driven by her 
throbbing engines through the sea, is in kind, though not in 
degree, as much a creation as the whale that swims beneath. 
The telescope and the microscope, what are they but added 
eyes, which man has made for himself ; the soft webs and 
fair colors in which our women array themselves, do they not 
answer to the plumage that nature gives the bird ? Man 
must be doing something, or fancy that he is doing some- 
thing, for in him throbs the creative impulse ; the mere 
basker in the sunshine is not a natural, but an abnormal 

man. ... 

As soon as a child can command its muscles, it will begin 
to make mud pies or dress a doll ; its play is but the imita- 
tion of the work of its elders ; its very destructiveness 
arises from the desire to be doing something, from the 
satisfaction of seeing itself accomplish something. There is 
no suck thing as the j)ursuit of pleasure for the sake of 



UPON SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 335 

pleasure. Our very amusements only amuse as they are, or 
simulate, the learning or the doing of something. The 
moment they cease to appeal either to our inquisitive or to 
our constructive powers, they cease to amuse. It will spoil 
the interest of the novel reader to be told just how the 
story will end ; it is only the chance and the skill involved 
in the game that enable the card-player to " kill time" by 
shuffling bits of pasteboard. The luxurious frivolities of 
Versailles were only possible to human beings because the 
King thought he was governing a kingdom and the courtiers 
were in pursuit of fresh honors and new pensions. People 
who lead what are called lives of fashion and pleasure must 
have some other object in vievv, or they would die of ennui ; 
they only support it because they imagine that they are gain- 
ing position, making friends, or improving the chances of 
their children. Shut a man up, and deny him employment, 
and he must either die or go mad. 

It is not labor in itself that is repugnant to man ; it is not 
the natural necessity for exertion which is a curse. It is 
only labor which produces nothing — exertion of which he 
cannot see the results. To toil day after day, and yet get 
but the necessaries of life, this is indeed hard ; it is like the 
infernal punishment of compelling a man to pump lest he be 
drowned, or to trudge on a treadmill lest he be crushed. 
But, released from this necessity, men would but work the 
harder and the better, for then they would work as their 
inclinations led them ; then would they seem to be really 
doing something for themselves or for others. Was Hum- 
boldt's life an idle one ? Did Franklin find no occupation 
when he retired from the printing business with enough to 
live on ? Is Herbert Spencer a laggard ? Did Michael 
Angelo paint for board and clothes ? 

The fact is that the work which improves the condition 
of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and 
increases power, and enriches literature, and elevates 
thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of 
slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or 
by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform 
it for its own sake, and not that they may get more to eat 
or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where 
want was abolished, work of this sort would be enormously 
increased. 

I am inclined to think that the result of confiscating rent 
in the manner I have proposed, would be to cause the 



336 EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

organization of labor, wherever large capitals were used, to 
assume the co-operative form, since the more equal diffusion 
of wealth would unite capitalist and laborer in the same 
person. But whether this would be so or not is of little 
moment. The hard toil of routine labor would disappear. 
Wages would be too high and opportunities too great to 
compel any man to stint and starve the higher qualities of 
his nature, and in every avocation the brain would aid the 
hand. Work, even of the coarser kinds, would become a 
lightsome thing, and the tendency of modern production to 
subdivision would not involve monotony or the contraction 
of ability in the worker'; but would be relieved by short 
hours, by change, by the alternation of intellectual with 
manual occupations. There would result, not only the 
utilization of productive forces now going to waste ; not only 
would our present knowledge, now so imperfectly applied, 
be fully used ; but from the mobility of labor and the 
mental activity which would be generated, there would result 
advances in the methods of production that we now cannot 
imagine. 

For greatest of all the enormous wastes which the present 
constitution of society involves, is that of mental power. 
How infinitesimal are the forces that concur to the advance 
of civilization, as compared to the forces that lie latent ! 
How few are the thinkers, the discoverers, the inventors, the 
organizers, as compared with the great mass of the people ! 
Yet such men are born in plenty ; it is the conditions that 
permit so few to develop. There are among men infinite 
diversities of aptitude and inclination, as there are such 
infinite diversities in physical structure that among a million 
there will not be two that cannot be told apart. But, both 
from observation and reflection, I am inclined to think that 
the diiferences of natural power are no greater than the 
differences of stature or of physical strength. Turn to the 
lives of great men, and see how easily they might never have 
been heard of. Had C^sar come of a proletarian family ; 
had Napoleon entered the world a few years earlier ; had 
Columbus gone into the Church instead of going to sea ; had 
Shakespeare been apprenticed to a cobbler or chimne}^- 
sweep ; had Sir Isaac Newton been assigned by fate the 
education and the toil of an agricultural laborer ; had Dr. 
Adam Smith been born in the coal hews, or Herbert Spencer 
forced to get his living as a factory operative, what would 
their talents have availed ? But there would have been, it 



UPON SOCIAL ORGANIZA TION AND SOCIAL LIFE. 337 

will be said, other Caesars or Napoleons, Columbuses or 
Shakespeares, Newtons, Smiths or Spencers. This is true. 
And it shows how prolific is our human nature. As the 
common worker is on need transformed into queen bee, so, 
when circumstances favor his development, what might other- 
wise pass for a common man rises into a hero or leader, dis' 
coverer or teacher, sage or saint. So widely has the sower 
scattered the seed, so strong is the germinative force that 
bids it bud and blossom. But, alas, for the stony ground, 
and the birds and the tares ! For one who attains his full 
stature, how many are stunted and deformed. 

The will within us is the ultimate fact of consciousness. 
Yet how little have the best of us, in acquirements, in position, 
even in character, that may be credited entirely to ourselves ; 
how much to the influences that have molded us. Who is there, 
wise, learned, discreet, or strong, who might not, were he to 
trace the inner history of his life, turn, like the Stoic 
Emperor, to give thanks to the gods, that by this one and 
that one, and here and there, good examples have been set 
him, noble thoughts have reached him, and happy opportuni- 
ties opened before him. Who is there, who, with his eyes 
about him, has reached the meridian of life, who has not 
sometimes echoed the thought of the pious Englishman, as 
the criminal passed to the gallows, " But for the grace of 
God, there go I." How little does heredity count as com- 
pared with conditions. This one we say, is the result of a 
thousand years of European progress, and that one of a 
thousand years of Chinese petrifaction : yet, placed an infant 
in the heart of China, and but for the angle of the eye or the 
shade of the hair, the Caucasian would grow up as those 
around him, using the same speech, thinking the same 
thoughts, exhibiting the same tastes. Change Lady Vere de 
Vere in her cradle with an infant of the slums, and will the 
blood of a hundred Earls give you a refined and cultured 
woman ? 

To remove want and the fear of want, to give to all classes 
leisure, and comfort, and independence, the decencies and 
refinements of life, the opportunities of mental and moral 
development, would be like turning water into a desert. The 
sterile waste would clothe itself with verdure, and the barren 
places where life seemed banned would ere long be dappled 
with the shade of trees and musical with the song of birds. 
Talents now hidden, virtues unsuspected, would come^orth to 
make human life richer, fuller, happier, nobler. For in these 
22 



33S EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. 

round men who are stuck into three- cornered holes, and 
three-cornered men who are jammed into round holes ; in 
these men who are wasting their energies in the scramble to 
be rich ; in these who in factories are turned into machines, or 
are chained by necessity to bench or plow ; in these children 
who are growing up in squalor, and vice, and ignorance, are 
powers of the highest order, talents the most splendid. They 
need but the opportunity to bring them forth. 

Consider the possibilities of a state of society that gave 
that opportunity to all. Let imagination fill out the picture ; 
its colors grow too bright for words to paint. Consider the' 
moral elevation, the intellectual activity, the social life. Con- 
sider how by a thousand actions and interactions the mem- 
bers of every community are linked together, and how in the 
present condition of things even the fortunate few who stand 
upon the apex of the social pyramid must suffer, though they 
know it not, from the want, ignorance, and degradation that are 
underneath. Consider these things, and then say whether 
the change I propose would not be for the benefit of every 
one — even the greatest landholder ? Would he not be safer 
of the future of his children in leaving them penniless in 
such a state of society than in leaving them the largest fortune 
in this ? Did such a state of society anywhere exist, would 
he not buy entrance to it cheaply by giving up all his 
possessions ? 

I have now traced to their source social weakness and dis- 
ease. I have shown the remedy. I have covered every 
point and met every objection. But the problems that 
we have been considering, great as they are, pass into prob- 
lems greater yet — into the grandest problems with which the 
human mind can grapple. I am about to ask the reader who 
has gone with me so far, to go with me further, into still higher 
fields. But I ask him to remember that in the little space 
which remains of the limits to which this book must be 
confined, I cannot fully treat the questions which arise. I 
can but suggest some thoughts, which may, perhaps, serve as 
hints for further thought. 



BOOK X. 



THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGE.ESS. 



What in me is dark 
Illumine, what is low raise and support ; 
That to the height of this great arfjument 
I may assert eternal Providence 
And justify the ways of God to men. 



CHAPTER I, 

THE CURRENT THEORY OF HUMAN PROGRESS — ITS INSUF- 
FICIENCY. 

If the conclusions at which we have arrived are correct, 
they Vv'ill fall under a larger generalization. 

Let, us, therefore, recommence our inquiry from a higher 
standpoint, whence we may survey a wider field. 

What is the law of human progress ? 

This is a question which, were it not for what has gone 
before, I should hesitate to review in the brief space I can 
now devote to it, as it involves, directly or indirectly, some of 
the very highest problems with which the human mind can 
engage. But it is a question which naturally comes up. Are 
or are not the conclusions to which we have come consistent 
with the great law under which human development goes on? 

What is that law ? We must find the answer to our ques- 
tion ; for the current philosophy, though it clearly recognizes 
the existence of such a law, gives no more satisfactory 
account of it than the current political economy does of the 
persistence of want amid advancing wealth. 

Let us, as far as possible, keep to the firm ground of facts. 



340 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

Whether man was or was not gradually developed from an 
animal, it is not necessary to inquire. However intimate 
may be the connection between questions which relate to 
man as we know him and questions which relate to his gen- 
esis, it is only from the former upon the latter that light can 
be thrown. Inference cannot proceed from the unknow^n to 
the known. It is only from facts of which we are cognizant 
that we can infer what has preceded cognizance. 

However man may have originated, all we know of him is 
as man — just as he is now to be found. There is no record 
or trace of him in any lower condition than that in which sav- 
ages are still to be met. By whatever bridge he may have 
crossed the wide chasm which now separates him from the 
brutes, there remain of it no vestiges. Between the lowest 
savages of whom we know and the highest animals, there is 
an irreconcilable difference — a difference not merely of 
degree, but of kind. Many of the characteristics, actions, 
and emotions of man are exhibited by the lower animals ; 
but mxan, no matter how low in the scale of humanity, has 
never yet been found destitute of one thing of which no 
animal shows the slightest trace, a clearly recognizable but 
almost undefinable something, which gives him the power of 
improvement — which makes him the progressive animal. 

The beaver builds a dam, and the bird a nest, and the bee 
a cell ; but while beavers' dams, and birds' nests, and bees' 
cells are always constructed on the same model, the house of 
the man passes from the rude hut of leaves and branches to 
the magnificent mansion replete with modern conveniences. 
The dog can to a certain extent connect cause and effect, and 
may be taught some tricks ; but his capacity in these respects 
has not been a whit increased during all the ages he has 
been the associate of improving man, and the dog of civiliza- 
tion is not a whit more accomplished or intelligent than the 
dog of the wandering savage. We know of no animal that 
uses clothes, that cooks its food, that makes itself tools or 
weapons, that breeds other animals that it wishes to eat, or 
that has an articulate language. But men who do not do 
such things have never yet been found, or heard of, except in 
fable. That is to say, man, wherever we know him, exhib- 
its this power — of supplementing what nature has done for 
him by what he does for himself ; and, in fact, so inferior is 
the physical endowment of man, that there is no part of the 
world, save perhaps some of the small islands of the Pacific, 
where without this faculty he could maintain an existence. 



INSUFFICIENCY OF THE CURRENT THEORY. 341 

Man everywhere and at all times exhibits this faculty — 
everywhere and at all times of which we have knowledge, he 
has made some use of it. But the degree in which this has been 
done greatly varies. Between the rude canoe and the steam- 
ship ; between the boomerang and the repeating rifle ; 
between the roughly carved wooden idol and the breathing 
marble of Grecian art ; between savage knowledge and mod- 
ern science ; between the wild Indian and the white settler ; 
between the Hottentot woman and the belle of polished 
society, there is an enormous difference. 

The varying degrees in which this faculty is used cannot be 
ascribed to differences in original capacity — the most highly 
improved peoples of the present day were savages within his- 
toric times, and we meet with the widest differences between 
peoples of the same stock. Nor can they be wholly ascribed to 
differences in physical environment — the cradles of learning 
and the arts are now in many cases tenanted by barbarians, 
and within a few years great cities rise on the hunting grounds 
of wild tribes. All these differences are evidently connected 
with social development. Beyond perhaps the veriest rudi- 
ments, it only becomes possible for man to improve as he 
lives with his fellows. All thes-e improvements, therefore, in 
man's powers and condition we summarize in the term civili 
zation. Men improve as they become civilized, or learn to 
co-operate in society. 

What is the law of this improvement t By what common 
principle can we explain the different stages of civilization at 
which different communities have arrived ? In what consists 
essentially the progress of civilization, so that we may say of 
varying social adjustments, this favors it, and that does not ; 
.or explain why an institution or condition which may at one 
time advance it, may at another time retard it ? 

The prevailing belief now is, that the progress of civiliza- 
tion is a development or evolution, in the course of which 
man's powers are increased and his qualities improved by the 
operation of causes similar to those which are relied upon as 
e.^plaining the genesis of species — viz., the survival of the fit- 
test and the hereditary transmission of acquired qualities. 

That civilization is an evolution — that it is, in the language 
of Herbert Spencer, a progress from an indefinite, incoherent 
homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity — there is 
no doubt ; but to say this is not to explain or identify the causes 
which forward or retard it. How far the sweeping gener- 
alizations of Spencer, which seek Xo account for all phenom- 



342 TB-E LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

ena under terms of matter and force, may, properly understood, 
include all these causes, I am unable to say ; but, as scientif- 
ically expounded, the development philosophy has either not 
yet definitely met this question, or has given birth, or rather 
coherency, to an opinion which does not accord with the 
facts. 

The vulgar explanation of progress is, I think, very much 
like the view naturally taken by the money maker of the 
causes of the unequal distribution of wealth. His theory, if he 
has one, usually is, that there is plenty of money to be made 
by those who have will and ability, and that it is ignorance, 
or idleness, or extravagance, that makes the difference be- 
tween the rich and the poor. And so the common explana- 
tion of differences of civilization is of differences in capacity. 
The civilized races are the superior races, and advance in 
civilization is according to this superiority — just as English 
victories were, in common English opinion, due to the natural 
superiority of Englishmen to frog-eating Frenchmen ; and 
popular government, active invention, and greater average 
comfort are, or were until lately, in comm.on American opin- 
ion, due to the greater " smartness of the Yankee Nation." 

Now, just as the politico-economic doctrines which in the 
beginning of this inquiry we met and disproved, harmonize 
with the common opinion of men who see capitalists paying 
wages and competition reducing wages ; just as the Malthusian 
theory harmonized with existing prejudices both of the rich 
and the poor ; so does the explanation of progress as a grad- 
ual race improvement harmonize with the vulgar opinion which 
accounts by race dift'erences for differences in civilization. It 
has given coherence and a scientific formula to opinions which 
already prevailed. Its wonderful spread since the time Dar- 
win first startled the world with his "Origin of Species " has' 
not been so much a conquest as an assimilation. 

The view which now dominates the world of thought is 
this : That the struggle for existence, just in proportion as 
it becomes intense, impels men to new efforts and inventions. 
That this improvement and capacity for improvement is fixed 
by hereditary transmission, and extended by the tendency of 
the best adapted individual, or most improved individual, to 
survive and propagate among individuals, and of the best 
adapted, or most improved tribe, nation, or race to survive in 
the struggle between social aggregates. On this theory the 
differences between man and the animals, and the differences 
in the relative progress of men, are now explained as confi- 



INSUFFICIENCY OF THE CURRENT THEORY.. 343 

dently, and all but as generally, as a little while ago they were 
explained upon the theory of special creation and divine inter- 
position. 

The practical outcome of this theory is in a sort of hope* 
ful fatalism, of which current literature is full.* In this view, 
progress is the result of forces v/hich work slowly, steadily, 
and remorselessly, for the elevation of man. War, slavery, 
tyranny, superstition, famine, and pestilence, the want and 
misery which fester in modern civilization, are the impelling 
causes which drive man on, by eliminating poorer types and 
extending the higher ; and hereditary transmission is the 
power by which advances are fixed, and past advances made 
the footing for new advances. The individual is the result 
of changes thus impressed upon and perpetuated through a 
long series of past individuals, and the social organization 
takes its form from the individuals of which it is composed. 
Thus, while this theory is, as Herbert Spencer says t — " rad- 
ical to a degree beyond anything which current radicalism 
conceives ; " inasmuch as it looks for changes in the very 
nature of man ; it is at the same time " conservative to a 
degree beyond anything conceived by current conservatism," 
inasmuch as it holds that no change can avail save these slow 
changes in men's natures. Philosophers m.ay teach that this 
does not lessen the duty of endeavoring to reform abuses^ 
just as the theologians who taught predestinarianism insisted 
on thecjty of all to struggle for salvation; but, as generally 
apprehended, the result is fatalism — " do what we may, the 
mills of the gods grind on regardless either of our aid or our 
hindrance." I allude to this only to illustrate what I take to 
be the opinion now rapidly spreading and permeating common 
thought ; not that in the search for truth any regard for its 
effects should be permitted to bias the mind. But this I take 
to be the current view of civilization : That it is the result of 
forces, operating in the way indicated, which slowly change 
the character, and improve and elevate the powers of man ; 

* In semi-scientific or popularized form this may perhaps be seen in best, because 
frankest, expression in " The Martyrdom of Man," b}'' Winwood Reade, a writer ol 
singular vividness and power. This book is in reslity a history of progress, or, 
rather, a monograph upon its causes and methods, and will well repay perusal for 
its vivid pictures, whatever may be thought of the capacity of the author for phil- 
osophic generaliza.tion. The connection between subject and title may be seen by 
the conclusion : " I give to universal htstory a strange but true title — The Martyr- 
dojn of Man. In each generation the human race has been tortured that their chil- 
dren might profit b}^ their woes. Our own prosperity is founded on the agonies of 
the past. Is it therefore unjust that we also should suffer for the benefit of those who 
are to come ? " 

t " The Study of Sociology "- Conclusion. 



r^ I^HE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

that the difference between civilized man and savage is of a 
long race education, which has become permanently fixed in 
mental organization ; and that this improvement tends to go 
on increasingly, to a higher and higher civilization. We have 
reached such a point that progress seems to be natural with 
us, and we look forward confidently to the greater achieve* 
ments of the coming race — some even holding that the prog* 
ress of science will finally give men immortality and enable 
them to make bodily the tour not only of the planets, but of 
the fixed stars, and at length to manufacture suns and systems 
for themselves. t 

But without soaring to the stars, the moment that this 
theory of progression, which seems so natural to us amid an 
advancing civilization, looks around the world, it comes 
against an enormous fact — the fixed, petrified civilizations. 
The majority of the human race to-day have no idea of prog- 
ress ; the majority of the human race to-day look (as until a 
few generations ago our own ancestors looked) upon the past 
as the time of human perfection. The difference between 
the savage and the civilized man may be explained on the the- 
ory that the former is as yet so imperfectly developed that his 
progress is hardly apparent ; but how, upon the theory that 
human progress is the result of general and continuous causes, 
shall we account for the civilizations that have progressed so 
far and then stopped ? It cannot be said of the Hindoo and 
of the Chinaman, as it may be said of the savage, that our 
superiority is the result of a longer education ; that we are, as 
it were, the grown men of nature, while they are the children. 
The Hindoos and the Chinese were civilized when we were 
savages. They had great cities, highly organized and power- 
ful governments, literatures, philosophies, polished manners, 
considerable division of labor, large commerce, and elabo- 
rate arts, when our ancestors were wandering barbarians, 
living in huts and skin tents, not a whit further advanced 
than the American Indians. While Vv^e have progressed from 
this savage state to Nineteenth Century civilization, they 
have stood still. If progress be the result of fixed lav^s, in- 
evitable and eternal, which impel men forward, how shall we 
account for this ? 

One of the best popular expounders of the development 
philosophy, Walter Bagehot (" Physics and Politics ") admits 
me force of this objection, and endeavors in this way to ex- 
plain it : That the first thing necessary to civilize man is to 

1 Winwood Reade, " The Martyrdom of Man/ 



INSUFFICIENCY OF THE CURRENT THEORY. 345 

tame him ; to induce him to Hve in association with his fel- 
lows in subordination to law ; and hence a body or " cake'* 
of laws and customs grows up, being intensified and ex- 
tended by natural selection, the tribe or nation thus bound 
together having an advantage over those who are not. That 
this cake of custom and law finally becomes too thick and 
hard to permit further progress, which can only go on as cir- 
cumstances occur which introduce discussion, and thus 
permit the freedom and mobility necessary to improve^ 
ment. 

This explanation, which Mr. Bagehot offers, as he says, 
with some misgivings, is I think at the expense of the general 
theory. But it is not worth while speaking of that, for it, 
manifestly, does not explain the facts. 

The hardening tendency of which Mr. Bagehot speaks 
would show itself at a very early period of development, and 
his illustrations of it are nearly all drawn from savage or 
semi-savage life. Whereas, these arrested civilizations had 
gone a long distance before they stopped. There must have 
been a time when they were very far advanced as compared 
with the savage state, and were yet plastic, free, and advanc 
ing. These arrested civiHzations stopped at a point which 
was hardly in anything inferior and in many respects superior 
to European civilization of, say, the sixteenth or at any rate 
the fifteenth century. Up to that point then there must have 
been discussion, the hailing of what was new, and mental 
activity of all sorts. They had architects who carried the 
art of building, necessarily by a series of innovations or im- 
provements, up to a very high point ; ship-builders who in 
the same way, by innovation after innovation, finally produced 
as good a vessel as the war ships of Henry VIII • inventors who 
only stopped on the verge of our most important improvements, 
and from some of whom we can yet learn ; engineers who con- 
structed great irrigation works and navigable canals ; rival 
schools of philosophy and conflicting ideas of religion. One 
great religion, in many respects resembling Christianity, rose in 
India, displaced the old religion, passed into China, sweep- 
ing over that country, and was displaced again in its old 
seats, just as Christianity was displaced in its first seats. 
There was life, and active life, and the innovation that begets 
improvement, long after men had learned to live togetlier. 
And, moreover, both India and China have received the in- 
fusion of new life in conquering races, with different customs 
and n^odes of thought. 



346 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

The most fixed and petrified of all civilizations of which 
we know anything was that of Egypt, where even art finally 
assumed a conventional and inflexible form. But we know 
that behind this must have been a time of life and vigor — a 
freshly developing and expanding civilization, such as ours is 
now — or the arts and sciences could never have been carried 
to such a pitch. And recent excavations have brought to 
light from beneath what we before knew of Egypt an earlier 
Egypt still — in statues and carvings which, instead of a hard 
and formal type, beam with life and expression, which show 
art struggling, ardent, natural, and free, the sure indication of 
an active and expanding life. So it must have been once 
ivith all now unprogressive civilizations. 

But it is not merely these arrested civilizations that the 
current theory of development fails to account for. It is not 
merely that men have gone so far on the path of progress and 
then stopped ; it is that men have gone far on the path of 
progress and then gone back. It is not merely an isolated 
case that thus confronts the theory — // is the universal rule. 
Every civilization that the world has yet seen has had its 
period of vigorous growth, of arrest and stagnation ; its 
decline and fall. Of all the civilizations that have arisen and 
flourished, there remain to-day but those that have been 
arrested, and our own, which is not yet as old as were the 
pyramids when Abraham looked upon them — while behind 
the pyramids were t^venty centuries of recorded history. 

That our own civilization has a broader ba.se, is of a more 
advanced type, moves quicker and soars higher than any 
preceding civilization is undoubtedly true ; but in these 
respects it is hardl}/^ more in advance of tl'#2 Greco-Roman 
civilization than that was in advance of Asiatic civilization ; 
and if it were, that would prove nothing as to its permanence 
and future advance, unless it be shown that it is superior 
in those things which caused the ultimate failure of its 
predecessors. The current theory does not assume this. 

In truth, nothing could be further from explaining the 
facts of universal history than this theory that civilization is 
the result of a course of natural selection v/hich operates 
to improve and elevate the powers of man. That civilization 
has arisen at different times, in different places, and has 
progressed at different rates, is not inconsistent with this 
theory ; for that might result from the unequal balancing of 
impelling and resisting forces ; but that progress everywhere 
commencing (for even among the lowest tribes it is held that 



INSUFFICIENCY OF THE CURRENT THEORY. 347 

there has been some progress) has nowhere been con- 
tinuous but has eveiywhere been brought to a stand 
or retrogression, is absolutely inconsistent. For if prog- 
ress operated to fix an improvement in man's nature and 
thus to produce further progress, though there might be 
occasional interruption, yet the general rule would be that 
progress would be continuous — that advance would lead to 
advance, and civilization develop into higher civilization. 

Not merely the general rule, but the universal rule^ is the 
reverse of this. The earth is the tomb of the dead empires, 
no less than of dead men. Instead of progress fitting men 
for greater progress, every civilization that was in its own 
time as vigorous and advancing as ours is now, has of itself 
come to a stop. Over and over again, art has declined, 
learning sunk, power waned, population become sparse, until 
the peojjle who had , built great temples and mighty cities, 
turned rivers and pierced mountains, cultivated the earth like 
a garden and introduced the utmost refrnemxCnt into the 
minute affairs of life, remained but in a remnant of squalid 
barbarians, who had lost even the memory of Vv^hat their 
ancestors had done, and regarded the surviving fragments of 
their grandeur as the work of genii, or of the mighty race 
before the flood. So true is this, that when we think of the 
past, it seems like the inexorable law, from which we can no 
more hope to be exempt "than the young man who " feels 
his life in every limb " can hope to be exempt from the disso- 
lution which is the common fate of all. " Even this, O 
Rome, must one day be thy fate ! " wept Scipio over the 
ruins of Carthage, and Macaulay's picture of the New 
Zealander musing upon the broken arch of London Bridge 
appeals to the imagination of even those who see cities rising 
in the wilderness and help to lay the foundations of new 
empire. And so, when we erect a public building we make a 
hollow in the largest corner stone and carefully seal within it 
some mementoes of our day, looking forward to the time 
when our works shall be ruins and ourselves forgot. 

Nor whether this alternate rise and fall of civilization, 
this retrogression that always follows progression, be, or be 
not, the rythmic movement of an ascending line (and I think, 
though I will not open the question, that it would be much 
more difficult to prove the afhrmative than is generally sup- 
posed) makes no difference ; for the current theory is in 
either case disproved. Civilizations have died and made no 
sign, and hard won progress has been lost to the race forever \ 



348 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRE^iSi: 

biu, even if be admitted that each wave of progress has made 
possible a higher wave, and each civilization passed the torch 
to a greater civihzation, the theor}^ that civiUzation advances 
by changes wrought in the nature of man fails to explain the 
facts ; for in every case it is not the race that has been 
educated and hereditarily modified by the old civilization 
that begins the new, but a fresh race coming from a lower 
level. It is the barbarians of the one epoch who have been 
the civilized men of the next ; to be in their turn succeeded 
by fresh barbarians. For it has been heretofore always the 
case that men under the influences of civilization, though at 
first improving, afterwards degenerate. The civilized man of 
to-day is vastly the superior of the uncivilized ; but so in the 
time of its vigor was the civilized man of every dead civiliza- 
tion. But there are such things as the vices, the corruptions, 
the enervations of civilization, which past a certain point have 
always heretofore shown themselves. Every civilization that 
has been overwhelmed by barbarians has really perished 
from internal decay. 

This universal fact, the moment that it is recognized, dis- 
poses of the theory that progress is by hereditary trans- 
mission. Looking over the history of the world, the line of 
greatest advance does not coincide for any length of time 
with any line of heredity. On any particular line of heredity, 
retrogression seems always to follow advance. 

Shall ve therefore say that there is a national or race life, 
as there i? an individual life — that every social aggregate has, 
as it were, a certain amount of energy, the expenditure of 
which necessitates decay. This is an old and wide-spread 
idea, that is yet largely held, and that may be constantly seen 
cropping out incongruously in the writings of the expounders 
of the development philosophy. Indeed, I do not see why it 
may not be stated in terms of matter and of motion so as to 
bring it clearl)/" within the generalizations of evolution. For 
considering its individuals as atoms, the growth of society is 
*' an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of mo- 
tion ; during which the matter passes from an indefinite, 
incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, 
and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel 
transformation."^ And thus an analogy may be drawn 
between the life of a society and the life of a solar system 
upon the nebular hypothesis. As the heat and light of the 
sun are produced by the aggregation of atoms evolving 

•' Herbert Spencer's definition of Evolution, '" First Principles," p. 3q6, 



DIFFERENCES IN Cli^ILIZA TION 349 

motion, which finally ceases when the atoms at length come 
to a state of eqiiiUbriiim or rest, and a state of immobihty 
succeeds, which can be only broken in again by the impact of 
external forces, which reverse the process of evolution, inte- 
grating motion and dissipating matter in the form of gas, 
again to evolve motion by its condensation ; so, it may be 
said, does the aggregation of individuals in a community 
evolve a force which produces the light and warmth of civili- 
zation, but when this process ceases and the individual coik- 
ponents are brought into a state of equilibrium, assuming 
their fixed places, petrifaction ensues, and the breaking up 
and diffusion caused by an incursion of barbarians is neces- 
sary to the recommencement of the process and a new growth 
of civilization. 

But analogies are the most dangerous mocTes of thought. 
They may connect resemblances and yet disguise or cover up 
the truth. And all such analogies are superficial. While its 
members are constantly reproduced in all the fresh vigor 01 
childhood, a community cannot grov/ old, as does a man, by 
the decay of its powers. While its aggregate force must be 
the sum of the forces of its individual components, a commu- 
nity cannot lose vital power unless the vital powers of its 
components are lessened. 

Yet in both the common analogy which likens the life 
power of a nation to that of an individual, and in the one I 
have supposed, lurks the recognition of an obvious truth — the 
truth that the obstacles which finally bring progress to a halt 
are raised by the course of progress ; that what has destroyed 
all previous civilizations has been the conditions produced by 
the growth of civilization itself. 

This is a truth which in the current philosophy is ignored ; 
but it is a truth most pregnant. Any valid theory of human 
progress must account for it. 



CHAPTER II. 

DIFFERENCES IN CIVILIZATION TO WHAT DUE. 

In attempting to discover the law of human progress, the 
first step must be to determine the essential nature of those 
differences which we describe as differences in civil- 
ization. 



350 THE LA V/ OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

That the current philosophy, which attributes social 
progress to changes wrought in the nature of man, does not 
accord with historical facts, we have already seen. And we 
may also see, if we consider them, that the diiferences 
between communities in different stages of civilization cannot 
be ascribed to innate differences in the individuals who com- 
pose these communities. That there are natural differences 
is true, and that there is such a thing as hereditary transmis- 
sion of peculiarities is undoubtedly true •, but the great 
differences betv/een men in different states of society cannot 
be explained in this way. The influence of heredity, which 
it is now the fashion to rate so highly, is as nothing compared 
with the influences which mold the man after he comes into 
the world. What is more ingrained in habit than language, 
which becomes not merely an automatic trick of the muscles, 
but the medium of thought ? what persists longer, or will 
quicker show nationality ? yet we are not born with a pre- 
disposition to any language. Our mother tongue is only our 
mother tongue because we learned it in infancy. Although 
his ancestors have thought and spoken in one language for 
countless generations, a child who hears from the first nothing 
else, will learn with equal facility any other tongue. And so 
of other national or local or class peculiarities. They seem 
to be matters of education and habit, not of transmission. 
Cases of white children captured by Indians in infancy and 
brought up in the wigwam show this. They become thorough 
Indians. And so, I believe, with children brought up by 
Gipsies. 

That this is not so true of the children of Indians or 
other distinctly marked races brought up by wdiites is, I 
think, due to the fact that they are never treated precisely as 
while children. A gentleman who had taught a colored 
school once told me that he thought the colored children, up 
to the age of ten or twelve, were really brighter and learned 
more readily than white children, but that after that age they 
seemed to get dull and careless. He thought this proof of innate 
race inferiority, and so did I at the time. But I afterwards 
heard a highly intelligent negro gentleman (Bishop Hillery) 
incidentally make a remark which to my mind seems a suffi- 
cient explanation. He said, " Our children, when they are 
young, are fully as bright as white children, and learn as 
readily. But as soon as they get old enough to appreciate 
their status — to realize that they are looked upon as belong- 
ing to an inferior race, and can never hope to be anything more 



DIFFERENCES IN CIVILIZATION. 351 

than cooks, waiters, or something of that sort, they lose their 
ambition and cease to keep up." And to this he might 
have added, that being tlie children of poor, uncultivated and 
unambitious parents, home influences told against them. 
For, I believe it is a matter of common observation that in 
the primary part of education the children of ignorant parents 
are quite as receptive as the children of intelligent parents, 
but by and by the latter, as a general rule, pull ahead and 
make the most intelligent men and women. The reason is 
plain. As to the first simple things which they learn only at 
school, they are on a par, but as their studies become more 
complex, the child who at home is accustomed to good English, 
hears intelligent conversation, has access to books, can get 
questions answered, etc. , has an advantage which tells. 

The same thing may be seen later in life. Take a man 
who has raised himself from the ranks of common labor, and 
just as he is brought into contact with men of culture and 
men of affairs, will he become more intelligent and polished. 
Take two brothers, the sons of poor parents, brought up in 
the same home and in the same wa}/-. One is put to a rude 
trade, and never gets beyoiltl the necessity of making a liv- 
ing by hard daily labor ; the other, commencing as an errand 
boy, gets a start in another direction, and becomes finally a 
successful lawyer, merchant, or politician. At forty or fifty 
the contrast between them will be striking, and the unreflect- 
ing will credit it to the greater natural ability which has 
enabled the one to push himself ahead. But just as striking 
a difl:erence in manners and intelligence will be manifest 
between two sisters, one of whom, married to a man who has 
remained poor, has her life fretted with petty cares and 
devoid of opportunities, and the other of whom has married 
a man whose subsequent position brings her into cultured 
society and opens to her opportunities which refine taste 
and expand intelligence. And so deteriorations maybe seen. 
That "evil communications corrupt good manners " is but an 
expression of the general law that human character is pro- 
foundly modified by its conditions and surroundings. 

I remember once seeing, in a Brazilian seaport, a negro 
man dressed in what was an evident attempt at the hight of 
fashion, but without shoes and stockings. One of the sailors 
with whom I was in company, and who had made some runs in 
the slave trade, had a theory that a negro was not a man, but a 
sort of monke}^, and pointed to this as evidence in proof, 
contending that it was not natural for a negro to wear shoes, 



352 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

and that in his v/ild state he would wear no clothes at all 
I afterwards learned that it was not considered " the thing " 
there, for slaves to wear shoes, just as in England it is not con- 
■sidered the thing for a faultlessly attired butler to wear 
jewelry (though for that matter I have since seen white men at 
liberty to dress as they pleased, get themselves up as incon- 
gruously as the Brazilian slave). But a great many of the 
facts adduced as showing hereditary transmission have really 
no more bearing than this of our forecastle Darwinian. 

That, for instance, a large number of criminals and recip- 
ients of public relief in New York have been shown to have 
descended from a pauper three or four generations back is 
extensively cited as shovving hereditary transmission. But it 
shows nothing of the kind, inasmuch as an adequate ex- 
planation of the facts is nearer. Paupers will raise paupers, 
even if the children be not their own, just as familiar contact 
with criminals will make criminals of the children of virtuous 
parents. To learn to rely on charity is to necessarily lose the 
self-respect and independence necessary for self-reliance 
when the struggle is hard. So true is this, that, as is w^ell 
known, charity has the effect of increasing the demand for 
charity, and it is an open question wdiether public relief and 
private alms do not in this way do far more harm than good. 
And so of the disposition of children to show the same feel- 
ings, taste, prejudices, or talents as their parents. They im- 
bibe these dispositions just as they imbibe from their habitual 
associates. And the exceptions prove the rule, as dislikes or 
revulsions may be excited. 

And there is, I think, a subtler influence which often ac- 
counts for what are looked upon as atavisms of character — 
the same influence that makes the boy who reads dime novels 
want to be a pirate. I once knew a gendeman in whose veins 
ran the blood of Indian chiefs. He used to tell me traditions 
learned from his grandfather, which illustrated what is diffi- 
cult for a white man to comprehend — the Indian habit of 
thought, the intense but patient blood thirst of the trail, and 
the fortitude of the stake. From the v/ay in which he dwelt 
on these, I have no doubt that under certain circumstances, 
highly educated, civilized man that he was, he vvould have 
shown traits v/hich would have been looked on as due to his 
Indian blood ; but which in reality would have been sufficiently 
explained by the broodings of his imagination upon the 
deeds of his ancestors.* 

* Wordsworth, in his " Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle," has in highly 



DIFFERENCES IN CIVILIZATION. 353 

In any large community we may see, as between different 
classes and groups, differences of the same kind as those 
which exist between communities which we speak of as dif- 
fering in civilization — differences of knowledge, belief, cus- ■ 
toms, tastes, and speech, which in their extremes show among 
people of the same race, living in the same country, differ- 
ences almost as great as those between civilized and savage 
communities. As all stages of social development, from the 
stone age up, are yet to be found in contemporaneously exist- 
ing communities, so in the same country and in the same city 
are to be found, side by side, groups which show similar diver- 
sities. In such countries as England and Germany, children 
of the same race, born and reared in the same place, will grow 
up, speaking the language differently, holding different beliefs, 
following different customs, and showing different tastes ; and 
even in such a country as the United States differences o| 
the same kind, though not of the same degree, may be seen 
between different circles or groups. 

But these differences are certainly not innate. No baby is 
born a Methodist or Catholic, to drop its h's or to sound them. 
All these diff^erences which distinguish different groups or 
circles are derived from association in these circles. 

The Janissaries were made up of youths torn from Chris- 
tian parents at an early age, but they were none the less fanat- 
ical Moslems and none the less exhibited all the Turkish traits ; 
the Jesuits and other orders show distinct character, but it is 
. certainly not perpetuated by hereditary transmissions ; and 
even such associations as schools or regiments, where the 
components remain but a short time and are constantly chang- 
ing, exhibit general characteristics, which are the result of 
mental impressions perpetuated by association. 

Now, it is this body of traditions, beliefs, customs, laws, 
habits and associations, which arise in every community and 
which surround every individual — this " super-organic envi- 
ronment," as Herbert Spencer calls it, that, as I take it, is the 
great element in determining national character. It is this, 
rather than hereditary transmission, which makes the English- 
man differ from the Frenchman, the German from the Italian, 
the American from the Chinaman, andihe civilized man from 

poetical form alluded to this influence : 

Armor rusting- in his halls 
On the blood of Clifford calls ; 

euell the Scott," exclaims the lance: 
ear me to the heart of France," 
Is the lodging of the shield. 

23 



354 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 



the savage man. It is in this way that national traits are pre- 
served, extended, or altered. 

Within certain limits (or, if 3^011 choose, without limits in it- 
self), hereditary transmission may develop or alter qualities, 
but this is much more true of the physical than of the mental 
part of a man, and much more true of animals than it is even 
of the physical part of man. Deductions from the breeding 
of pigeons or cattle will not apply to man, and the reason is 
clear. The life of man, even in his rudest state, is infinitely 
more complex. He is constantly acted on by an infinitely 
greater number of influences, amid which the relative in- 
fluence of heredity becomes less and less. A race of men 
with no greater mental activity than the animals — men who 
only ate, drank, slept, and propagated — might, I doubt not, 
by careful treatment and selection in breeding, be made, in 
course of time, to exhibit as great diversities in bodily shape 
and character as similar means have produced in the domes- 
tic animals. But there are no such men ; and in men as 
they are, mental influences, acting through the mind upon the 
body, would constantly interrupt the process. You cannot 
fatten a man whose mind is on the strain, by cooping him up 
and feeding him, as you would fatten a pig. In all probabil- 
ity men have been upon the earth longer than many species 
of animals. They have been separated from each other un- 
der differences of climate that produce the most marked differ- 
ences in animals, and yet the physical differences between 
the different races of men are hardly greater than the differ- 
ence between white horses and black horses — they are cer- 
tainly nothing like as great as between dogs of the same sub- 
species, as, for instance, the different varieties of the terrier or 
spaniel. And even these physical differences between races 
of men, it is held by those who account for them by natural 
selection and hereditary transmission, were brought out when 
man was much nearer the animal — that is to say, when he had 
less mind. 

And if this be true of the physical constitution of man, in 
how much higher degree is it true of his mental constitution ? 
All our physical parts we bring with us into the world ; but 
the mind develops afterward. 

There is a stage in the growth of every organism in which- 
it cannot be told, except by the environment, whether the 
animal that is to be will be fish or repdle, monkey or man. 
And so with the new-born infant ; whether the mind that is 
vet to awake to consciousness and power is to be Eng:Hsh or 



DIFFERENCES IN CI VI LIZ A TION. 355 

G jrnian ximerican, or Chinese — the mind of a civilized man 
:yr tlie mind of a savage — depends entirely on the social en- 
vironment in which it is placed. 

Take a nmnber of infants born of the most highly civilized 
parents and transport them to an uninhabited country. Sup- 
pose them in some miraculous way to be sustained until they 
come of age to take care of themselves, and what would you 
have? More helpless savages than any we know of. They 
would have fire to discover ; the rudest tools and weapons to 
invent ; language to construct. They would, in short, have 
to stumble their way to the simplest knowledge which the 
lowest races now possess, just as a child learns to walk. 
That they would in time do all these things I have not the 
slightest doubt, for all these possibilities are latent in the hu- 
man mind just as the power of walking is latent in the human 
frame, but I do not believe they would do them any better or 
worse, any slower or quicker, than the children of barbarian 
parents placed in the same conditions. Given the ver}^ high- 
est mental powers that exceptional individuals have ever dis- 
played, and what could mankind be if one generation were 
separated from the next bv an interval of time, as are the 
seventeen year locusts. One such interval would reduce 
mankind, not to savagery, but to a condition compared 
with which savagery, as we know it, would seem civili- 
zation. 

And, reversely, suppose a number of savage infants could, 
unknown to the mothers (for even this would be necessary 
to make the experiment a fair one), be substituted for as 
many children of civilization, can we suppose that growing up 
they would show any difference ? I think no one Vv'ho has 
mixed much with different peoples and classes will think so. 
The great lesson that is thus learned is that " human nature 
is human nature all the world over." And this lesson, too, may 
be learned in the library. .1 speak not so much of the ac- 
counts of travelers, for the accounts given of savages by the 
civilized men who write books are very often just such ac- 
counts as savages would give of. us did they make flying visits 
and then write books ; but of those mementos of t-ic life r.nd 
thoughts of other times* and other peoples, which, ticinslated 
into our language of to-day, are like glimpses of our own lives 
and gleams of our own thought. The feeling they iiiSTjire 
is that of the essential similarity of men. " This/' cLyc 
Emanuel Deutsch— " this is the end of all investigation into 
tetory or a-r; : 1. j^i/ zverc cvzn as -wd ar^^^^ 



356 THE LA W OF HUAIAA' PROGRESS. 

There is a people who are to be found in all parts of the 
world who well illustrate what peculiarities are due to heredi- 
tary transmission and what to transmission by association. 
The Jews have maintained the purity of their blood more 
scrupulously and for a far longer time than any of the European 
races, yet I am inclined to think that the only characteristic 
that can be attributed to this is that of physiognomy, and this 
is in reality far less marked than is conventionally supposed, 
as any one who will take the trouble may see on observation. 
Although they have constantly married among themselves, 
the Jews have everywhere been modified by their surround- 
ings — the English, Russian, Polish, German, and Oriental 
Jews differing from each other in many respects as much as 
do the other people of those countries. Yet they have much 
in common, and have ever3^where preserved their individuality. 
The reason is clear. It is the Hebrew religion — and certainly 
religion is not transmitted by generation but by association 
— which has everywhere preserved the distinctiveness of the 
Hebrew race. This, religion, which children derive, not as 
they derive their physical characteristics, but by precept and 
association, is not merely exclusive in its teachings, but has, 
by engendering suspicion and dislike, produced a powerful 
outside pressure which, even more than its precepts, has 
everywhere constituted of the Jews a community within a 
community. Thus has been built up and maintained a 
certain peculiar environment which gives a distinctive charac- 
ter. Jewish intermarriage has been the effect, not the cause 
of this. What persecution which stopped short of taking 
Jewish 'children from their parents and bringing them up 
outside of this peculiar environment could not accomplish, 
will be accomplished by the lessening intensity of religious 
behef, as is already evident in the United States, where the 
distinction between Jew and Gentile is fast disappearing. 

And it seems to me that the influence of this social net or^ 
environment will explain vvhat is so often taken as proof of 
race differences — the difficulty which less civilized races show 
in receiving higher civilization, and the manner in which some 
of them melt away before it. Just as one social environment 
persists, so does it render it difficult or impossible for those 
subject to it to accept another. 

The Chinese character is fixed if that of any people is. 
Yet the Chinese in California acquire American modes of 
working, trading, the use of machinery, etc., with such facility 
as to prove that they have no lack of flexibility, or natural 



DIFFERENCES IN CIVILIZA TION. 357 

capacity. That they do not change in other respects is due 
to the Chinese environment that still persists and still sur- 
rounds them. Coming from China, they look forward to 
return to China, and live while here in a little China of their 
own, just as the Englishmen in India maintain a little 
England. It is not merely that we naturally seek association 
with those who share our peculiarities, and that thus lan- 
guage, religion and custom tend to persist wheie individuals 
are not absolutely isolated ; but that these differences provoke 
an external pressure, which compels such association. 

These obvious principles fully account for all the phenom- 
ena which are seen in the meeting of one stage or body of 
culture with another, without resort to the theory of ingrained 
differences. For instance, as comparative philology has 
shown, the Hindoo is of the same race as his English con- 
queror, and individual instances have abundantly shown 
that if he could be placed completely and exclusively in the 
English environment (which, as before stated, could be only 
thoroughly done by placing infants in English families in such 
a way that neither they, as they grow up, nor tliose around 
them, would be conscious of any distinction) one generation 
would be all required to thoroughly implant European civili' 
zation. But the progress of English ideas and habits in India 
must be necessarily very slow, because they meet there the 
web of ideas and habits constantly perpetuated through an 
immense population, and interlaced with every act of life. 

Mr. Bagehot (" Physics and Politics ") endeavors to ex 
plain the reason why barbarians waste away before out 
civilization, while they did not before that of the ancients, 
by assuming that the progress of civilization has given us 
tougher physical constitutions. After alluding to the fact 
that there is no lament in any classical writer for the barba- 
rians, but that everywhere the barbarian endured the contact 
with the Roman and the Roman allied himself to the barba- 
rian, he says (p. 47-8) : 

"• Savages in the first year of the Christian era were pretty much what they were 
in the eighteen hundredth ; and if they stood the contact of' ancient civilized men 
and cannot stand ours, it folloAvs that our race is presumably tougher than the ancient ; 
for we have to bear, and do bear, the seeds of greater diseases than the ancients car- 
ried with them We may use, perhaps, the unvarying savage as a meter to gauge 
the vigor of the constitution to whose contact he is exposed?' 

Mr. Bagehot does not attempt to explain how it is that 
eighteen hundred years ago civilization did not give the like 
relative advantage over barbarism that it does now. But 
there is no use of talking about that, or of the lack of i3roof 



3S8 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

that the human constitution has been a whit :ir proved. To 
any one wlio has seen how die contact c:'^ our civihzation 
affects the inferior races, a much "readier though less flattering 
explanation will occur. 

It is not because our constitution: ire naturally tougher 
than those of the savage, that diseases which are compara- 
tively innocuous to us are certain death to him. It is that we 
know and have the means of treating those diseases, while he 
is destitute both of knowledge and m.eans. The same dis- 
eases with which the scum of civilization that floats in its 
advance inoculate the savage, would prove as destructive to 
civilized men, if they knew no better than to let them run, as 
he in his ignorance has to let them run ; and as a matter of 
fact they were as destructive, until we found out how to treat 
them. And not merely this, but the effect of the impinge- 
ment of civilization upon barbarism is to weaken the power 
of the savage without bringing him into the conditions that 
give power to the civilized man. While his habits and cus- 
toms still tend to persist, and do persist as far as they can, 
the conditions to which they were adapted are forcibly 
changed. He is a hunter in a land stripped of game ; a war- 
rior deprived of his arms and called on to plead in legal 
technicalities. He is not merely placed between cultures, 
but, as Mr. Bagehot says of the European half-breeds in In- 
dia, he is placed between moralities, and learns the vices of 
civilization without its virtues. He loses his accustomed 
means of subsistence, he loses self-respect, he loses morality ; 
he deteriorates and dies away. The miserable creatures who 
may be seen hanging around frontier towns or railroad sta- 
tions, ready to beg, or steal, or solicit a viler commerce, are 
not fair representatives of the Indian before the white man 
had encroached upon his hunting grounds. They have lost 
the strength and virtues of their former state, without gaining 
those of a higher. In fact, civilization, as it pushes the red 
man, shows no virtues. To the Anglo-Saxon of the frontier, 
as a rule, the aborigine has no rights which the white man is 
bound to respectc He is impoverished, misunderstood, 
cheated, and abused. He dies out, as, under similar condi- 
tions, we should die out. He disappears before civilization 
as the Romanized Britons disappeared before Saxon barbar- 
ism. 

The true reason why there is no lam.ent in any classic 
writer for the barbarian, but that the Roman civilization assimi- 
lated instead of destroying, is, I take it, to be found not only 



DIFFERENCES IN CIVILIZA TION. 359 

in the fact that the ancient civilization was much nearer akin 
to the barbarians which it met, but in the more important 
fact that it was not extended as ours has been. It was carried 
forward, not by an advancing Une of colonists, but by conquest 
which merely reduced the new province to general subjection, 
leaving the social and generally the political organization of 
the people to a great degree unimpaired, so that, without 
shattering or deterioration, the process of assimilation went 
on. In a somewhat similar way, the civilization of Japan 
seems to be now assimilating itself to European civili- 
zation. 

In America the Anglo-Saxon has exterminated, instead of 
civilizing, the Indian, simply because he has not brought the 
Indian into his environment, nor yet has the contact been in 
such a way as to induce or permit the Indian web of habitual 
thought and custom to be changed rapidly enough to meet the 
new conditions into which he has been brought by the prox- 
imity of new and powerful neighbors. That there is no innate 
impediment to the reception of our civilization by these un- 
civilized races has been shown over and over again in individ- 
ual cases. And it has likewise been shown, so far as the ex- 
periments have been permitted to go, by the Jesuits in 
Paraguay, the Franciscans in California, and the Protestant 
missionaries on some of the Pacific Islands. 

The assumption of physical improvement in the race within 
any time of which we have knowledge is utterly without 
warrant, and within the time of which Mr. Bagehot speaks, it 
is absolutely disproved. We know from classic statues, from 
the burdens carried and the marches made by ancient soldiers, 
from the records of runners and the feats of gymnasts, that 
neither in proportions nor strength has the race improved 
within two thousand years. But the assumption of mental 
improvement, which is even more confidently and generally 
m-ade, is still more preposterous. As poets, artists, architects, 
philosophers, rhetoricians, statesmen, or soldiers, can modern 
civilization show individuals of greater mental power than can 
the ancient ? There is no use in recalling names — every 
school boy knows them. For our models and personifications 
of mental power we go back to the ancients, and if we can 
for a moment imagine the possibility of what is held by that 
oldest and most wide spread of all beliefs — that belief which 
Lessing declared on this account the most probably true 
though he accepted it on metaphysical grounds — and suppose 
Homer or Virgil, Demosthenes or Cicero, Alexander, Hannibal 



36o THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

or Caesar, Plato or Lucretius, Euclid or Aristotle, as re-entering 
this life again in the Nineteenth Century, can we suppose 
that they would show any inferiority to the men of to-day ? Or 
if we take any period since the classic age, even the darkest, 
or any previous period of which we know anything, shall we 
not find men who in the conditions and degree of knowledge 
of their times showed mental power of as high an order as 
men show now ? And among the less advanced races do we 
not to-day, whenever our attention is called to them, find men 
who in their conditions exhibit mental qualities as great as 
civilization can show ? Did the invention of the railroad, 
coming when it did, prove any greater inventive power than 
did the invention of the wheelbarrow when wheelbarrows 
were not ? We of modern civilization are raised far above 
those who have preceded us and those of the less advanced 
races who are our contemporaries. But it is because we stand 
on a pyramid, not that we are taller. What the centuries 
have done for us is not to increase our stature, but to build up 
a structure on which we may plant our feet. 

Let me repeat : I do not mean to say that all men possess 
the same capacities, or are mentally alike, anymore than I mean 
to say that they are physically alike. Among all the countless 
millions who have come and gone on this earth, there were 
probably never two who either physically or mentally were 
exact counterparts. Nor yet do I mean to say that there are 
not as clearly marked race differences in mi^nd as there are 
clearly marked race differences in body. I do not deny the 
influence of heredity in transmitting peculiarities of mind in 
the same way, and to possibly the same degree, as bodily pe- 
culiarities are transmitted. But nevertheless, there is, it seems 
to me, a common standard and natural symmetry of mind, as 
there is of body, toward which all deviations tend to return. 
The conditions under which we fall may produce such dis- 
tortions as the Flatheads produce by compressing the heads 
of their infants or the Chinese by binding t^eir daughters' 
feet. But as Flathead babies continue to be born with nat- 
urally shaped heads and Chinese babies with naturally shaped 
feet, so does nature seem to revert to the normal mental type. 
A child no more inherits his father's knowledge than he 
inherits his father's glass eye or artificial leg ; the child of 
the m.ost ignorant parents may become a pioneer of science 
or a leader of thought. 

But this is the great fact with v/hich we are con- 
cerned : That the differences between the people of com- 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 361 

raunities in different places and at different times, which 
we call differences of civilization, are not differences 
which inhere in the individuals, but differences which 
inhere in the society ; that they are not, as Herbert Spencer 
holds, differences resulting from differences in the units ; 
but that they are differences resulting from the conditions 
under which these units are brought in the society. In 
short, I take the explanation of the differences which 
distinguish communities to be this : That each society, small 
or great, necessarily weaves for itself a web of knowledge, 
beliefs, customs, language, tastes, institutions, and laws. 
Into this web, woven by each society (or, rather, into 
these webs, for each community above the simplest is 
made up of minor societies, which overlap and interlace 
each other), the individual is received at birth and con- 
tinues until his death. This is the mxatrix in which mind 
unfolds and from which it takes its stamp. This is the 
Vv^ay in which customs, and religions, and prejudices, and 
tastes, and languages, grow up and are perpetuated. This is 
the way that skill is transmitted and knowledge is stored 
up, and the discoveries of one time made the common 
stock and stepping-stone of the next. Though it is this 
that often offers the most serious obstacles to progress, it 
is this that makes progress possible. It is this that 
enables any schoolboy in our time to learn in a few hours 
more of the universe than Ptolemy knew ; that places 
the most humdrum scientist far above the level reached 
by the giant mind of Aristotle. This is to the race 
what memory is to the individual. Our wonderful arts, 
our far-reaching science, our marvelous inventions — they 
have come through this. 

Human progress goes on as the advances made by one 
generation are in this way secured as the common 
property of the next, and made the starting point for 
new advances. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

^ What, then, is the law of human progress— the law under 
which civilization advances t 

It must explain clearly and definitely, and not by rague 



362 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

generalities or superficial analogies, why, though mankind 
started presumably with the same capacities and at the same 
time, there now exist such wide differences in social develop- 
ment. It must account for the arrested civilizations and for 
the decayed and destroyed civilizations ; for the general facts 
as to the rise of civilization, and for the petrifying or enervat- 
ing force which the progress of civilization has heretofore 
always evolved. It must account for retrogression as well as 
for progression ; for the differences in general character 
between Asiatic and European civilizations ; for the differ- 
ence between classical and modern civilizations ; for the 
different rates at which progress goes on ; and for those 
bursts, and starts, and halts of progress which are so marked 
as minor phenomena. And, thus, it must show us what are 
the essential conditions of progress, and what social adjust- 
ments advance and what retard it. 

It is not difficult to discover such a law. We have but to 
look and we may see it. I do not pretend to give it scientific 
precision, but merely to point it out. 

The incentives to progress are the desires inherent in 
human nature — the desire to gratify the wants of the animal 
nature, the wants of the intellectual nature, and the wants of 
the sympathetic nature ; the desire to be, to know, and to do 
— desires that short of infinity can never be satisfied, as they 
grow by what they feed on. 

Mind is the instrument by which man advances, and by 
which each advance is secured and made the vantage ground 
for new advances. Though he may not by taking thought 
add a cubit to his stature, man may by taking thought extend 
his knowledge of the universe and his power over it, in what 
so far as we can see, is an infinite degree. The narrow span 
of human life allows the individual to go but a short distance, 
but though each generation may do but Httle, yet generations 
succeeding to the gain of their predecessors, may gradually 
elevate the status of mankind, as coral polyps, building one 
generation upon the work of the other, gradually elevate 
themselves from the bottom of the sea. 

Mental power is, therefore, the motor of progress, and men 
tend to advance in proportion to the mental power expended 
in progression — the niental power which is devoted ' to the 
extension of knowledge, the improvement of methods, and 
the betterment of social conditions. 

Now mental power is a fixed quantity — that is to say, there 
is a limit to the v;ork a man can do with his mind, as there is 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 363 

to the work he can do with his body ; therefore, the mental 
power which can be devoted to progress is only what is left 
after what is required for non-progressive purposes. 

These non-progressive purposes in which mesial power is 
consumed may be classified as maintenance and conflict. By 
maintenance I mean, not only the support of existence, but 
the keeping up of the social condition and the holding of 
advances already gained. By conflict I mean not merely 
warfare and preparation for warfare, but all expenditure of 
mental power in seeking the gratification of desire at the ex- 
pense of others, and in resistance to such aggression. 

To compare society to a boat. Her progress through the 
water will not depend upon the exertion of her crew, but upon 
the exertion devoted to propelling her. This will be lessened 
by any expenditure of force required for bailing, or any ex- 
penditure of force in fighting am-ong themselves, or in pull- 
ing in diiferent directions. 

Now, as in a separated state the whole powers of man are 
required to maintain existence, and mental power is only set 
free for higher uses by the association of m^en in communi- 
ties, which permits the division of labor and all the economies 
which come with the co-operation of increased numbers, asso- 
ciation is the first essential of progress. Improvement 
becomes possible as men come together in peaceful associa- 
tion, and the wider and closer the association, the greater the 
possibilities of improvement. And as the wasteful expendi- 
ture of mental power in conflict becomes greater or less as 
the moral law which accords to each an equality of rights is 
ignored or is recognized, equality (or justice) is the second 
essential of progress. 

Thus association in equality is the law of progress. Asso- 
ciation frees mental power for expenditure in improvement, 
and equality (or justice, or freedom — for the terms here 
signify the same thing, the recognition of the moral law) 
prevents the dissipation of this power in fruitless struggles. 

Here is the law of progress, which will explain all diversi- 
ties, all advances, all halts, and retrogressions. Men tend 
to progress just as they come closer together, and by co- 
operation with each other increase the mental power that 
may be devoted to improvement, but just as conflict is 
provoked, or association develops inequality of condition and 
power,' this tendency to progression is lessened, checked, and 
finally reversed. 

Given the same innate capacity, and it is evident that 



364 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

social development will go on faster or slower, will stop or 
turn back, according to the resistances it meets. In a gen- 
eral way these obstacles to improvement may, in relation to 
the society itself, be classed as external and internal — the 
first operating with greater force in the earlier stages of 
civilization, the latter becoming more important in the later 
stages. 

Man is social in his nature. He does not require to be 
caught and tamed in order to induce him to live with his 
fellows. The utter helplessness with which he enters the 
world, and the long period required for the maturity of 
his powers, necessitates the family relation ; which, as we 
may observe, is wider, and in its extensions stronger, among 
the ruder than among the more cultivated peoples. The first 
societies are families, expanding into tribes, still holding a 
mutual blood relationship, and even when they have become 
great nations claiming a common descent. 

Given beings of this kind, placed on a globe of such 
diversified surface and climate as this, and it is evident that 
even with equal capacity, and an equal start, social develop- 
ment must be very different. The first limit or resistance to 
association will come from the conditions of physical nature, 
and as these greatly vary with locality, corresponding differ- 
ences in social progress must show themselves. The net 
rapidity of increase, and the closeness with which men, as 
they increase, can keep together, will, in the rude state of 
knowledge in which reliance for subsistence must be princi- 
pally upon the spontaneous offerings of nature, very largely 
depend upon climate, soil, and physical conformation. Where 
much animal food and warm clothing are required ; where 
the earth seems poor and niggard ; where the exuberant life 
of tropical forests mocks barbarous man's puny efforts to 
control ; where mountains, deserts, or arms of the sea separ- 
ate and isolate men ; association, and the power of improve- 
ment which it evolves, can at first go but a little ways. But 
on the rich plains of warm climates, v/here human existence 
can be maintained with a smaller expenditure of force, and 
from a much smaller area, men can keep closer together, and 
the mental power which can at first be devoted to improve- 
ment is much greater. Hence civilization naturally first 
arises in- the great valleys and table lands where we find its 
earliest monuments. 

But these diversities in natural conditions, not merely thus 
directly produce diversities in social development, but, by 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. T^^t^ 

producing diversities in social development, bring out in man 
himself an obstacle, or rather an active counterforce, to 
improvement. As families and tribes are separated from 
each other, the social feeling ceases to operate between them, 
and differences arise in language, custom, tradition, religion 
— in short, in the whole social web which each community, 
however small or large, constantly spins. With these differ- 
ences, prejudices grow, animosities spring up, contact easily 
produces quarrels, aggression begets aggression, and wrong 
kindles revenge. ^ And so between these separate social 
aggregates arises the feeling of Ishmael and the spirit of 
Cain, warfare becomes the chronic and seemingly natural 
relation of societies to each other, and the powers of men 
" are expended in attack or defense, in mutual slaughter and 
mutual destruction of wealth, or in warlike preparations. 
How long this hostility persists, the protective tariffs and the 
standing armies of the civilized world to-day bear witness ; 
how difficult it is to get over the idea that it is not theft 
to steal from a foreigner, the difficulty in procuring an 
international copyright act will show. Can we wonder at 
the perpetual hostilities of tribes and clans 1 Can we wonder 
that when each community was isolated from the others 
— when each, uninfluenced by the others, was spinning its 
separate web of social environment, which no individual can 
escape, that war should have been the rule and peace the 
exception t " They were even as we are." 

Now, warfare is the negation of association. The separ- 
ation of men into diverse tribes, by increasing warfare, thus 
checks improvement ; while in the localities where a large 
increase in numbers is possible without much separation^ 
civilization gains the advantage of exemption from tribal 
war, even when the community as a whole is carrying on 
warfare beyond its borders. Thus, where the resistance of 
nature to the close association of men is slightest, the 
counterforce of warfare is likely at first to be least felt ; and 
in the rich plains where civilization first begins, it may rise to 

"^^ How easy it is for ignorance to pass into contempt and dislike ; how natural 
it is for us to consider any difference in manners, customs, religion, etc., as proof 
of the inferiority of those who differ from us, any one who has emancipated himself 
in any degree from prejudice, and who mixes Vv^ith different classes may see in 
civilized society. In religion, for instance, the spirit of the hymn — 

" I'd rather be a Baptist, and wear a shining face. 
Than for to be a Methodist, and always fall from grace," 

is observable in all denominations. As the English Bishop said, " Orthodoxy is my 
doxy, and heterodoxy is any other doxy," while the universal tendency is to classify 
411 outside of the or1ikodo:^ies and heterodoxies of the prevailing religion as heathens 
*r atheist-s. And the like tendency is observable as to all other di^erences. 



366 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

a great heght while scattered tribes are yet barbarous. 
And thus, when small, separated communities exist in a state 
of chronic warfare which forbids advance, the first step to 
their civilization is the advent of some conquering tribe or 
nation that unites these smaller communities into a larger 
one, in which internal peace is preserved. Where this power 
of peaceable association is broken up, either by external 
assaults or internal dissensions, the advance ceases and retro- 
gression begins. 

But it is not conquest alone that has operated to promote 
association, and, by liberating mental power from the neces- 
sities of warfare, to promote civilization. If the diversities 
of climate, soil, and configuration of the earth's surface 
operate at first to separate mankind, they also operate to 
encourage exchange. And commerce, which is in itself a 
form of association or co-operation, operates to promote 
civilization, not only directly, but by building up interests 
which are opposed to warfare, and dispelling the ignorance 
which is the fertile mother of prejudices and animosities. 

And so of religion. Though the forms it has assumed and 
the animosities it has aroused have often sundered men and 
produced warfare, yet it has at other times been the means of 
promoting association. A common worship has often, as 
among the Greeks, mitigated war and furnished the basis of 
union, while it is from the triumph of Christianity over the 
barbarians of Europe that modern civilization springs. Had 
not the Christian Church existed when the Roman Empire 
went to pieces, Europe, destitute of any bond of assocation, 
might have fallen to a condition not much above that of the 
North American Indians, or only received civilization with 
an Asiatic impress from the conquering cimeters of the 
invading hordes which had been welded into a mighty 
power by a religion which, springing up in the deserts of 
Arabia, had united tribes separated from time immemorial, 
and, thence issuing, brought into the association of a common 
faith a great part of the human race. 

Looking over what we know of the history of the world, we 
thus see civilization everywhere springing up where men are 
brought into association, and everywhere disappearing as this 
association is broken up. Thus the Roman civilization, 
spread over Europe by the conquests which insured internal 
peace, was overwhelmed by the incursions of the northern na- 
tions that broke society again into disconnected fragments ; 
and the progress that nov>r goes on in our modern civilization 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 367 

began as the feudal system again began to associate men in 
larger communities, and the spiritual supremacy of Rome to 
bring these communities into a common relation, as her 
legions had done before. As the fer.dal bonds grew into 
national autonomies, and Christianity worked the amelioration 
of manners, brought forth the knowledge that during the dark 
days she had hidden, bound the threads of peaceful union in 
her all-pervading organization, and taught association in her 
religious orders, a greater progress became possible, which, 
as men have been brought into closer -and closer association 
and co-operation, has gone on with greater and greater 
force. 

But we shall never understand the course of civilization and 
the varied phenomena which its history presents, without a con- 
sideration of what I may term the internal resistances, or coun- 
terforces, which arise in the heart of advancing society, and 
which can alone explain how a civilization once fairly started 
should either come of itself to a halt or be destroyed by 
barbarians. 

The mental power, which is the motor of social progress, is 
set free by association, which is (what, perhaps, it may be 
more properly called) an integration. Society in this process 
becomes more complex ; its individuals more dependent upon 
each other. Occupations and functions are specialized. In- 
stead of wandering, population becomes fixed. Instead of 
each man attempting to supply all of his wants, the various 
trades and industries are separated — one man acquires skill 
in one thing, and another in another thing. So, too, of 
knowledge, the body of which constantly tends to become 
vaster than one man can grasp, and is separated into different 
parts, which different individuals acquire and pursue. So, too, 
the performance of religious ceremonies tends to pass into 
the hands of a body of men specially devoted to that purpose, 
and the preservation of order, the administration of justice, 
the assignment of public duties and the distribution of awards, 
the conduct of war, etc., to be made the special functions of 
an organized government. In short, to use the language in 
which Herbert Spencer has defined evolution, the develop- 
ment of society is, in relation to its component individuals, 
the passing from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a 
definite, coherent heterogeneity. The lower the stage of 
social development, the more society resembles one of those 
lowest of animal organisms, Y/hich are without organs or limbs, 
and from which a part may be cnt and yet live. The higher 



368 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

the stage of social development, the more society resembles 
those higher organisms in which functions and pov/ers are 
specialized, and each member is vitally dependent on the 
others. 

Now, this process of integration, of the specialization of 
functions and powers, as it goes on in society, is by virtue of 
what is probably one of the deepest laws of human nature, 
accompanied by a constant liability to inequality. I do not 
mean that inequality is the necessary result of social growth, 
but that it is the constant tendency of social growth if unac- 
companied by changes in social adjustments which in the 
new conditions that ,2:rowth produces will secure equahty. 
I mean, so to speak, that the garment of laws, customs, and 
political institutions, which each society weaves for itself, is 
constantly tending to become too tight as the society devel- 
ops. I mean so to speak, that man, as he advances, threads 
a. labyrinth, in which, if he keeps straight ahead, he will infal- 
libly lose his way, and through which reason and justice can 
alone keep him continuously in an ascending path. 

For while the integration which accompanies growth tends 
in itself to set free mental power to work improvement, there 
is, both with increase of numbers and with increase in com- 
plexity of the social organization, a counter-tendency set up 
to the production of a state of inequality, which wastes 
mental power, and, as it increases, brings improvement to a 
halt. 

To trace to its highest expression the law which thus 
operates to evolve with progress the force which stops prog- 
ress, would be, it seems to me, to go far to the solution of a 
problem deeper than that of the genesis of the m.aterial 
universe — the problem of the genesis of evil. Let m.e content 
myself with pointing out the manner in v/hich, as society 
develops, there arise tendencies which check development. 

There are two qualities of human nature, which it will be 
well, however, to first call to mind. The one is the powder of 
habit — the tendency to continue to do things in the same 
way^ the other is the possibility of mental and moral deterio- 
ration. The effect of the first"' in social development is to 
continue habits, customs, laws and methods, long after they 
have lost their original usefulness, and the effect of the other 
is to permit the growth of institutions and modes of thought 
from which the normal perceptions of men instinctively 
revolt. 

Now the growth and development of society, not merely 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 369 

tend to make each more and more dependent upon all and to 
lessen the influence of individuals, even over their own condi- 
tions, as compared with the influence of society ; but the effect 
of association or integration is to give rise to a collective power 
v/hich is distinguishable from the sum of individual powers. 
Analogies (or, perhaps, rather illustrations of the same law) 
may be found in all directions. As animal organisms increase 
in complexity, there arise, above the life and power of the 
parts, a life and power of the integrated whole ; above the 
capability of involuntary movements, the capability of volun- 
tary movements. The actions and impulses of bodies of men 
are, as has often been observed, different from those which, 
under the same circumstances, would be called forth in indi- 
viduals. The fighting qualities of a regiment may be very differ- 
ent from those of the individual soldiers. But there is no need 
of illustrations. In our inquiries into the nature and rise of 
rent, we traced the very thing to which I allude. Where pop- 
ulation is sparse, land has no value ; just as men congregate 
together, the value of land appears and rises— a clearly dis- 
tinguishable thing from the values produced by individual 
effort; a value which springs from association, which increases 
as association grows greater, and disappears as association is 
broken up. And the same thing is true of power in other 
forms than those generally expressed in terms of wealth. 

Now, as society grows, the disposition to continue previous 
social adjustments tends to lodge this collective power, as it 
arises, in the hands of a portion of the community ; and this 
unequal distribution of the wealth and power gained as 
society advances, tends to produce greater inequality, since 
aggression grows by what it feeds on, and the idea of justice 
is blurred by the habitual toleration of injustice. - 

In this way the patriarchal organization of society can 
easily grow into hereditary monarch}^, in which the king is as 
a god on earth, and the masses of the people mere slaves of his 
caprice. It is natural that the father should be the direct- 
ing head of the family, and that at his death the eldest son, 
as the oldest and most experienced member of the little com- 
munity, should succeed to the headship. But to continue 
this arrangement as the family expands, is to lodge power in 
a particular line, and the power thus lodged necessarily 
continues to increase, as the common stock becomes larger 
and larger, and the power of the community grows. The 
head of the farail}^ passes into the hereditary king, who comes 
to look upon himself and to be looked upon by others as a 
24 



370 THE LA W OF HUAIAN PROGRESS. 

being of superior rights. With the growth of the collective 
power as compared with the power of the individual, his 
power to reward and to punish increases, and so increase the 
inducements to flatter and to fear him ; until finally, if the pro- 
cess be not^disturbed, a nation grovels at the foot of a throne, 
and a hundred thousand men toil for fifty years to prepare a 
tomb for one of their OMm mortal kin^l. 

So the war-chief of a little band of savages is but one of 
their number, whom they follow as their bravest and most- 
wary. But when large bodies come to act together, personal 
selection becomes more difficult, a blinder obedience becomes 
necessary and can be enforced, and from the very necessities 
of warfare when conducted on a large scale absolute power 
arises. 

And so of the specialization of function. There is a man- 
ifest gain in productive power when social growth has gone 
so far that instead of every producer being summoned from his 
work for fighting purposes, a regular military force can be 
specialized ; but this inevitably tends to the concentration of 
power in the hands of the military class or their chiefs. The 
preservation of internal order, the administration of justice, 
the construction and care of public works, and, notably, the 
observances of religion, all tend in similar manner to pass 
into the hands of special classes, whose disposition it is to 
magnify their function and extend their power. 

But the great cause of inequality is in the natural monopoly 
which is given by the possession of land. The first percep- 
tions of men seem always to be that land is common property ; 
but the rude devices by which this is at first recognized — such as 
annual partitions or cultivation in common — are only consist- 
ent with a low stage of development. The idea of property, 
which naturally arises with reference to things of human pro- 
duction, is easily transferred to land, and an institution which 
when population is sparse merely secures to the improver and 
user the due reward of his labor, finally, as population 
becomes dense and rent arises, operates to strip the producer 
of his wages. Not merely this, but the appropriation of rent 
for public purposes, which is the only way in which, with any- 
thing like a high development, land can be readily retained as 
common property, becomes, when political and religious 
power passes into the hands of a class, the ownership of the 
land by that class, and the rest of the ~ community become 
merely tenants. And wars and conquests, which tend to the 
concentration of political power and to the institution of 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 371 

slavery, naturally result, where social growth has given land 
a value, in the appropriation of the soil. A dominant class, 
who concentrate power in their hands, will likewise soon con- 
centrate ownership of the land. To them will fall large par- 
titions of conquered land, which the former inhabitants will 
till as tenants or serfs, and the public domain^ or common 
lands, which in the natural course of social growth are left for 
awhile in every country (and in which state the primitive sys- 
tem of, village culture leaves pasture and woodland) are read- 
ily acquired, as we see by modern instances. And inequality 
once established, the ownership of land tends to concentrate 
as development goes on. 

I am merely attempting to set forth the general fact that as 
social development goes on, inequality tends to establish 
itself, and not to point out the particular sequence, which 
must necessarily vary with different conditions. But this 
main fact makes intelligible all the phenomena of petrifaction 
and retrogression. The unequal distribution of the power and 
wealth gained by ihe integration of men in society tends to 
check, and finallv to counterbalance, the force by which im- 
provements are made and society advances. On the one 
side, the masses of the community are compelled to expend 
their mental powers in merely maintaining existence. On the 
other side, mental pov^^er is expended in keeping up and inten- 
sifying the system of inequalit}'^, in ostentation, luxury, and 
warfare. A community divided into a class that rules and a 
class that is ruled — into the very rich and the very poor, may 
"build like giants and finish like jewelers;" but it will be 
monuments of ruthless pride and barren vanity, or of a relig- 
ion turned from its office of elevating man into an instrument 
for keeping him down. Invention may for a while to some 
degree go on ; but it will be the invention of refinements in 
luxury, not the inventions that relieve toil and increase power. 
In the arcana of temples or in the chambers of court physi- 
cians knowledge may still be sought ; but it will be hidden 
as a secret thing, or if it dares come out to elevate common 
thought or brighten common life, it will be trodden down as 
a dangerous innovator. For as it tends to lessen the mental 
power devoted to improvement, so does inequality tend to 
render men adverse to improvement. Hov/ strong is the dis' 
position to adhere to old methods am.ong the classes who are 
kept in ignorance by being compelled to toil for a mere exist- 
ence, is too well known to require ilkistration ; and on the 
other hand the conservr'vsm of the classes to whom the exist' 



372 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS 

ing social adjustment gives special aclvant.'.^C^ ? , e^^iallj 
apparent. This tendency to resist innovation, even tnough it 
be improvement, is observable in every sp ,cial organization — • 
in religion, in law, in medicine, in scien-.e, in trade guilds ; 
and it becomes intense just as the organization is close. A 
close corporation has always an instinctive dislike of innova- 
tion and innovators, which is but the expression of an instinct- 
ive fear that change may tend to throw down the barriers 
which hedge it in from the common herd, and so rob it of im- 
portance and power ; and it is always disposed to guard 
carefully its special knowledge or skill. 

It is in this way that petrifaction succeeds progress. 
The advance of inequality necessarily brings improve- 
ment to a halt, and as it still persists or provokes un- 
availing reactions, draws even upon the mental power 
necessary for maintenance, and retrogression begins. 

These principles make intelligible the history of civil- 
ization. 

In the localities where climate, soil, and physical con- 
formation tended least to separate men as they increased, 
and where, accordingly, the first civilizations grew up, the 
internal resistances to progress would naturally develop in a 
more regular and thorough manner, than where smaller 
communities, which in their separation had developed 
diversities, were afterward brought together into a closer 
association. It is this, it seems to me, which accounts 
for the general characteristics of the earlier civilizations 
as compared with the later civilizations of Europe. 
Such homogeneous communities, developing from the 
first without the jar of conflict between different customs, 
laws, religions, etc., would show a much greater uniformity 
The concentrating and conservative forces would all, 
so to speak, pull together. E.ival chieftains would not 
counterbalance each other, nor diversities of belief hold 
the growth of priestly influence in check. Political and 
religious power, wealth and knowledge, would thus tend 
to concentrate in the same centers. The same causes which 
tended to produce the hereditary king and hereditary priest 
would tend to produce the hereditary artisan and laborer, and 
to separate society into castes. The power which association 
sets free for progress would thus be wasted, and barriers to 
further progress be gradually raised. The surplus energies of 
the masses would be devoted to the constru'ction of temples, 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 373 

palaces, and pyramids ; to ministering to the pride and 
pampering the luxury of their rulers; and should any dis- 
position to improvement arise among the classes of leisure 
it would at once be checked by the dread of innovation. 
Society developing in this way must at length stop in a con- 
servatism which permits no further progress. 

How long such a state of complete petrifaction, when once 
reached, will continue, seems to depend upon external causes, 
for the iron bonds of the social environment which grows up 
repress disintegrating forces as well as improvement. Such 
a community can be most easily conquered, for the masses 
of the people are trained to a passive acquiescence in a life 
of hopeless labor. If the conquerors merely take the place 
of the ruling class, as the Hyksos did in Egypt and the 
Tartars in China, everything will go on as before. If they 
ravage and destroy, the glory of palace and temple remains 
but in ruins, population becomes sparse, and knowledge and 
art are lost. 

European civilization differs in character from civilizations 
of the Egyptian type because it springs not from the associa- 
tion of a homogeneous people developing from the beginning, 
or at least for a long time, under the same conditions, but 
from the association of peoples who in separation had 
acquired distinctive social characteristics, and whose smaller 
organizations longer prevented the concentration of power 
and wealth in one center. The physical conformation of the 
Grecian peuhisula is such as to separate the people at first 
into a number of small communities. As those petty repub- 
lics and nominal kingdoms ceased to waste their energies in 
warfare, and the peaceable co-operation of commerce 
extended, the light of civilization blazed up. But the 
principle of association was never strong enough to save 
Greece from inter-tribal war, and when this was put an end 
to by conquest, the tendency to inequality, which had been 
combated with various devices by Grecian sages and states- 
men, worked its result, and Grecian valor, art, and literature 
became things of the past. And so in the rise and extension, 
the decline and fall, of Roman civilization, may be seen the 
working of these two principles of association and equality, 
from the combination of which comes progress. 

Springing from the association of the independent husband- 
men and free citizens of Italy and gaining fresh strength 
from conquests which brought hostile nations into commop 
relations, the Roman power hushed the world in peace. Bu^ 



374 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS, 

the tendency to inequality, checking real progress from the 
first, increased as' the Roman civilization extended. The 
Roman civilization did not petrifiy as did the homeogenous 
civilization where the strong bonds of custom and superstition 
that held the people in subjection, probably also protected 
them, or at any rate kept the peace between rulers and ruled ; 
it rotted, declined and fell. Long before Goth or Vandal 
had broken through the cordon of the legions, even while hei 
frontiers were advancing, Rome was dead at the heart 
Great estates had ruined Italy. Inequality had dried up the 
strength and destroyed the vigor of the Roman world. 
Government became despotism, which even assassination 
could not temper ; patriotism became servility ; vices the most 
foul flouted themselves in public ; literature sank to puerili- 
ties ; learning v\^as forgotten ; fertile districts became waste 
without the ravages of war — everywhere inequality produced 
decay, political, mental, moral, and material. The barbarism 
which overwhelmed Rome came not from Mdthout, but from 
within. It was the necessary product of the system which 
had substituted slaves and colonii for the independent hus- 
bandmen of Italy^ and carved the provinces into estates of 
senatorial families. 

Modern civilization owes its superiority to the growth of 
equality with the growth of association. Two great causes 
contributed to this — the splitting up of concentrated power 
into innumerable little centers b)' the influx of the Northern 
nations, and the influence of Christianity. Without the first 
there would have been the petrifaction and slow decay of the 
Eastern Empire, where church and state were closely married 
and loss of external power brought no relief of internal tyr- 
anny. And but for the other there would have been barbar- 
ism, but for principle of association or amelioration. The 
petty chiefs and allodial lords who everywhere grasped local 
sovereignty held each other in check. Italian cities recov- 
ered their ancient liberty, free towns were founded, village 
communities took root, and serfs acquired rights in the soil 
they tilled. The leaven of Teutonic ideas of equality worked 
through the disorganized and disjointed fabric of society. 
And' although society was split up into an innumerable num- 
ber of separated fragments, yet the idea of closer association 
was always present — it existed in the recollections of a uni- 
versal empire ; it existed in the claims of a universal church. 

Though Christianity became distorted and alloyed in per- 
colating through a rotting civilization ; though pagan gods 



THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 375 

were taken into her pantheon, and pagan forms into her rit- 
ual and pagan ideas into her creed ; yet her essential idea of 
the equality of men was never wholly destroyed. And two 
things happened of the utm.ost moment to incipient civiliza- 
tion — the establishment of the papacy and the celibacy of the 
clergy. The first prevented the spiritual power from concen- 
trating in the same lines as the temporal power ; and the 
latter prevented the establishment of a priestly caste, during 
a time when all power tended to hereditary form. 

In her efforts for the abolition of slavery ; in her Truce of 
God ; in her monastic orders ; in her councils which imited 
nations, and her edicts which ran Vv^ithout regard to political 
boundaries ; in the low born hands in which she placed a 
sign before which the proudest knelt ; in her bishops who by 
consecration became the peers of the greatest nobles ; in her 
" Servant of Servants," for so his official title ran, who, by 
virtue of the ring of a simple fisherman, claimed the right to 
arbitrate between nations, and whose stirrup was held by 
kings ; the Church, in spite of everything, was yet a promoter 
of association, a witness for the natural equality of men : 
and by the Church herself was nurtured a spirit that, 
when her early work of association and emancipation was 
well nigh done — when the ties she had knit had become 
strong, and the learning she had preserved had been given to 
the world — broke the chains with which she would have fet- 
tered the human mind, and in a great pait of Europe rent 
her organization. 

The rise and growth of European civilization is too vast 
and complex a subject to be thrown into proper perspective 
and relation in a few paragraphs ; but in all its details, as 
in its main features, it illustrates the truth that progress goes 
on just as society tends towards closer association and 
greater equality. Civilization is co-operation. Union and 
liberty are its factors. The great extension of association — 
not alone in the growth of larger and denser communities, 
but in the increase of commerce and the manifold exchanges 
which knit each community together and link them with other 
though widely separated communities ; the growth of inter- 
national and municipal law ; the advances in security of 
property and of person, in individual liberty, and towards 
democratic government — advances, in short, towards the rec- 
ognition of the equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness — it is these that make our modern civilization so 
much greater, so much hio-her, than any that has gone before. 



Zl^ THE LAW OF HUMAN PJ^ OGRESS. 

It is these that have set free the mental power that has rolled 
back the veil of ignorance which hid all but a small portion 
of the globe from men's knowledge ; which has measured the 
orbits of the circling spheres and bids us see moving, pulsing 
life in a drop of water ; which has opened to us the ante- 
chamber of nature's mysteries and read the secrets of a long 
buried past ; which has harnessed in our service physical 
forces beside which man's efforts are puny ; and increased 
productive power by a thousand great inventions. 

In that spirit of fatalism to which I have alluded as per- 
vading current literature, it is the fashion to speak even of 
war and slavery as means of human progress. But war, 
which is the opposite of association, can only aid progress 
when it prevents further war or breaks down anti-social bar- 
riers which are themselves passive war. 

As for slavery, I cannot see how it could ever have aided 
in establishing freedom, and freedom, the synonym of 
equality, is, from the very rudest state in which man can be 
imagined, the stimulus and condition of progress. Auguste 
Comte's idea that the institution of slavery destro3^ed canni- 
balism is as fanciful as Ella's humorous notion of the way 
mankind acquired a taste for roast pig. It assumes that a 
propensity that has never been found developed in man 
save as the result of the most unnatural conditions — the 
direst want or the most brutalizing superstitions! — is an 
original impulse, and that he, even in his lowest state the 
highest of all animals, has natural appetites which the 
nobler brutes do not show. And so of the idea that slavery 
began civilization by giving slave owners leisure for improve- 
ment. 

Slavery never did and never could aid improvement 
Whether the community consist of a single master and a sin- 
gle slave, or of thousands of masters and millions of slaves, 
slavery necessarily involves a waste of human power ; for not 
only is slave labor less productive than free labor, but the 
power of masters is likewise wasted in holding and watching 
their slaves, and is called away from directions in which real 
improvement lies. From first to last, slavery, like every 
other denial of the natural equality of men, has hampered 
and prevented progress. Just in proportion as slavery plays 
an important part in the social organization, does improve- 

t The Sandwich Islanders did honor to their good chiefs by eating their bodies. 
Their bad and tyrannical chiefs they would not touch. The New Zealanders had a 
notion that by eating their enemies they acquired their strength and valor. And 
this seems to be the general origin of eating: prisoners of war. 



HO W MODERN CIVILIZA TION MA Y DECLINE. 377 

ment cease. That in the classical world slavery was so uni- 
versal, is undoubtedly the reason why the mental activity 
which so polished literature and refined art never hit on any 
of the great discoveries and inventions which distinguish 
modern civilization. No slave holding people ever were an 
inventive people. In a slave holding community the upper 
classes may become luxurious and polished ; but nevei 
inventive. Whatever degrades the laborer and robs him of 
the fruits of his toil, stifles the spirit of invention and forbids 
the utilization of inventions and discoveries even when made. 
To freedom alone is given the spell of power which summons 
the genii in whose keeping are the treasures of earth and the 
viewless forces of the air. 

The law of human progress, what is it but the moral law } 
Just as social adjustments .promote justice, just as they 
acknowledge the equality of right between man and man, 
just as they insure to each the perfect liberty which is 
bounded only by the equal liberty of every other, must civili- 
zation advance. Just as they fail in this, must advancing 
civilization come to a halt and recede. Political economy 
and social science cannot teach any lessons that are not 
embraced in the simple truths that were taught to poor fishe:-- 
men and JevN^ish peasants by One who eighteen hundred 
years ago was crucified — the simple truths which, beneath 
the warpings of selfishness and the distortions of superstition, 
seem to underlie every religion that has ever striven to form- 
ulate the spiritual yearnings of man. 



CHAPTER IV. 



HOW MODERN CIVILIZATION MAY DECLINE. 

The conclusion we have thus reached harmonizes com^' 
pletely with our previous conclusions. 

This consideration of the law of human progress not only 
brings the politico-economic laws which in this inquiry we 
have worked out, within the scope of a higher law — perhaps 
the very highest law our minds can grasp ; but it proves that 
the making of land common property in the way I have 
proposed would give an enormous impetus to civilization, 
while the refusal to do so must entail retrogression. A civil- 
ization like ours must either advance or go back ; it cannot 



378 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

Stand still. It is not like those homogeneous civilizations 
such as that of the Nile Valley, which moulded men for their 
places and put them in it like bricks into a pyramid. It 
much more resembles that civilization whose rise and fall is 
within historic times, and from which it sprung. 

There is just now a disposition to scoff at any implication 
that we are not in all respects progressing, and the spirit of 
our times is that of the edict which the flattering premier 
proposed to the Chinese Emperor who burned the ancient 
books — " that all who may dare to speak together about the 
She and the Shoo be put to death ; that those who make 
mention of the past so as to blame the present be put to 
death along with their relatives." 

Yet it is evident , that there have been times of decline, 
just as there have been times of advance ; and it is further 
evident that these epochs of decline could not at first have 
been generally recognized. 

He would have been a rash man who, when Augustus was 
changing the Rome of brick to the Rome of marble, when 
wealth was augmenting and magnificence increasing, when 
victorious legions were extending the frontier, when manners 
were becoming more refined, language more polished, and 
literature rising to higher splendors — he would have been a 
rash man who then would have said that Rome was entering 
her decline. Yet such was the case. 

And whoever will look may see that though our civilization 
is apparently advancing with greater rapidity than ever, the 
same cause which turned Roman progress into retrogression 
is operating now. 

VVhat has destroyed every previous civilization has been 
the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and 
power. This same tendency, operating with increasing force, 
is observable in our civilization to-day, showing itself in 
every progressive community, and with greater intensity the 
more progressive the community. Wages and interest tend 
constantly to fall, rent to rise, the rich to become very much 
richer, the poor to become more helpless and hopeless, and 
the middle class to be swept av/a}^. 

I have traced this tendency to its cause. I have shown by 
what simple means this cause may be removed. I now wish 
to point out how^ if this is not done, progress must turn to 
decadence, and modern civilization decline to barbarism, as 
have all previous civilizations. It is worth while to point out 
how this may occur^ as many people, being unable to see how 



HO W MODERN CIVILIZA TION MA V DECLINE. 379 

progress may pass into retrogressioD, conceive such a thing 
impossible. Gibbon, for instance, thought that modern 
civihzation could never be destroyed because there remained 
no barbarians to overrun it, and it is a common idea tha.t the 
invention of printing by so multiplying books has prevented 
the possibility of knowledge ever again being lost. 

The conditions of social progress, as we have traced the 
law, are association and equality. The general tendency of 
modern development, since the time when we can first 
discern the gleams of civilization in the darkness which 
followed the fall of the Western Empire, has been towards 
political and legal equality — to the abolition of slavery; to 
the abrogation of status ; to the sweeping away of hereditary 
privileges ; to the substitution of parliamentary for arbitrary 
government ; to the right of private judgment in matters of 
religion ; to the more equal security in person and property 
of high and low, weak and strong ; to the greater freedom of 
movement and occupation, of speech and of the press. The 
history of modern civilizatiqn is the history of advances in 
this direction — of the struggles and triumphs of personal, 
political, and religious freedom. And the general law is 
shown by the fact that just as this tendency has asserted 
itself civilization has advanced, while just as it has been 
repressed or forced back civilization has been checked. 

This tendency has reached its full expression in the 
American Republic, where political and legal rights are 
absolutely equal, and, owing to the system of rotation in 
office, even the growth of a bureaucracy is prevented ; vv^here 
every religious belief or non-belief stands on the same footing ; 
where every boy may hope to be President, every man has an 
equal voice in public aifairs, and every official is mediately 
or immediately dependent for the short lease of his place 
upon a popular vote. This tendency has yet some triumphs 
to win in England, in extending the suffrage, and sweeping 
away the vestiges of monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy ; 
while in such countries as Germany and Russia, where divine 
right is yet a good deal more than a legal fiction, it has a 
considerable distance to go. But it is the prevailing ten- 
dency, and how soon Europe will be completely republican is 
only a matter of time, or rather of accident. The United 
States are therefore, in this respect, the most advanced of all 
the great nations, in a direction in which all are advancing, 
and m the United States we see just how much this tendency 
to personal and political freedom can of itself accomplish. 



aSo THE LA W OF HUMAJV PROGRESS. 

NoA^i, the first effect of the tendency to poHtical equah'ty 
was to the more equal distribution of weakh and power ; for 
while population is comparatively sparse, inequality in the 
distribution of wealth is principally due to the inequality 
of personal rights, and it is only as material progress goes on 
that the tendency to inequality involved in the reduction of 
land to private ownership strongly appears. But it is now 
manifest tiiat absolute political equality does not in itself 
prevent the tendency to inequality involved in the private 
ownership of land, and it is further evident that political 
equality, co-existing with an increasing tendency to the 
unequal distribution of wealth, must ultimately beget either 
the despotism of organized tyranny or the worse despotism 
of anarchy. 

To turn a republican government into a despotism the 
basest and most brutal, it is not necessary to formally 
change its constitution or abandon popular elections. It was 
centuries after Csesar before the absolute master of the 
Roman world pretended to rule other than by authority of a 
Senate that trembled before him. 

But forms are nothing when substance has gone, and the 
forms of popular government are those from which the 
substance of freedom may most easily go. Extremes meet, 
and a government of universal suffrage and theoretical 
equality, may, under conditions which impel the change, most 
readily become a despotism. For there despotism advances 
in the name and with the might of the peojDle. The single 
source of power once secured, everything is secured. There 
is no' unfranchised class to whom appeal may be made, no 
privileged orders who in defending their own rights may. 
defend those of all. No bulwark remains to stay the flood, 
no eminence to rise above it. They were belted barons led 
by a mitred archbishop who curbed the Plantagenet with 
Magna Charta; it was the middle classes who broke the prid^ 
of the Stuarts ; but a mere aristocracy of wealth will never 
struggle while it can hope to bribe a tyrant. 

And when the disparity of condition increases, so does uni- 
versal suffrage make it easy to seize the source of power, for 
the greater is the proportion of power in the hands of those 
who feel no direct interest in the conduct of government ; 
who, tortured by want and embruted by poverty, are ready to 
sell their votes to the highest bidder or follow the lead of the 
most blatant demagogue ; or who, made bitter by hardships, 
may even look upon profligate and tyrannous government 



HO W MODERN CIVILIZA TION MA Y DECLINE. 381 

with the satisfaction we may imagine tlie proletarians and 
slaves of Rome to have felt, as they saw a Caligula or Nero 
raging among the rich patricians. Given a community with re- 
publican institutions, in which one class is too rich to be shorn 
of their luxuries, no matter how public affairs are administered, 
and another so poor that a few dollars on election day will 
seem more than any abstract consideration ; in which the few 
roll in we-alth and the many seethe with discontent at a con- 
dition of things they know not how to remedy, and power 
must pass into the hands of jobbers who will buy and sell it 
as the Praetorians sold the Roman purple, or into the hands 
of demagogues who will seize and wield it for a time, only to 
be displaced by worse demagogues. 

Where theie is anything like an equal distribution of wealth 
— that is to say, where there is general patriotism, virtue, and 
intelligence — the more democratic the government the better 
it will be ; but where there is gross inequality in the dis- 
tribution of wealth, the more democratic the government the 
worse it will be ; for, while rotten democracy may not in itself 
be worse than rotten autocracy, its effects upon national 
character will be worse. To give the suffrage to tramps, to 
paupers, to men to whom the chance to labor is a boon, to 
men who must beg, or steal, or starve, is to invoke destruction. 
To put political power in the hands of men embittered and 
degraded by poverty is to tie firebrands to foxes and turn 
them loose amid the standing corn ; it is to put out the eyes 
of a Samson and to twine his arms around the pillars of na- 
tional life. 

Even the accidents of hereditary succession or of selection 
by lot (the plan of some of the ancient republics) may some- 
times place the wise and just in power ; but in a corrupt de- 
mocracy the tendency is always to give power to the worst. 
Honesty and patriotism are weighted, and unscrupulousness 
commands success. The best gravitate to the bottom, the 
worst float to the top, and the vile will only be ousted by the 
viler. While as national character must gradually assimilate 
to the qualides that win power, and consequently respect, 
that demoralization of opinion goes on which in the long pan- 
orama of history we may see over and over again transmuting 
races of freemen into races of slaves. 

As in England in the last century, when Parliament was but 
a close corporation of the aristocracy, a corrupt oligarchy 
clearly fenced off from the masses m.ay exist without much 
effect on national character, because in that case power is 



382 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

associated in the popular mind with other things than corrup- 
tion. But where there are no hereditary distinctions, and 
men are habitually seen to raise themselves by corrupt quali- 
ties from the lowest places to wealth and power, tolerance of 
these qualities finally becomes admiration. A corrupt demo- 
cratic government must finally corrupt the people, and when 
a people become corrupt there is no resurrection. The life 
is gone, only the carcass remains ; and it is left but for the 
plowshares of fate to bury it out of sight. 

Now this transformation of popular government into despo- 
tism of the vilest and most degrading kind, which must 
inevitably result from the unequal distribution of wealth, is 
not a thing of the far future. It has already begun in the 
United States, and is rapidly going on under our eyes. That 
our legislative bodies are steadily deteriorating in standard ; 
that men of the highest ability and character are compelled 
to eschew politics, and the arts of the jobber count for more 
than the reputation of the statesman ; that voting is done 
more recklessly and the power of money is increasing ; that 
it is harder to arouse the people to the necessity of reforms 
and more difficult to carry them out ; that political differences 
are ceasing to be differences of principle, and abstract ideas are 
losing their power ; that parties are passing into the control 
of what in general government would be oligarchies and 
dictatorships; are all evidences of political decline. 

The type of modern growth is the great city. Here are to 
be found the greatest wealth and the deepest poverty. And 
it is here that popular government has most ckaijy broken 
down. In all the great American cities there is to-day as 
clearly defined a ruling class as in the most aristocratic coun- 
tries of the world. Its members carry wards in their pockets, 
make up the slates for nominating conventions, distribute 
offices as they bargain together, and— though they toil not, 
neither do they spin— wear the best of raiment and spend 
money lavishly. They are men of power, whose favor tlie 
ambitious must court and whose vengeance he must avoid. 
Who are these men ? The wise, the good, the learned— men 
who have earned the confidence of their fellow-citizens by the 
purity of their lives, the splendor of their talents, their pro- 
bity in public trusts, their deep study of the problems of 
government ? No ; they are gamblers, saloon keepers, pugi- 
lists, or worse, who have made a trade of controlling votes and of 
buying and selling offices and official acts. They stand to the 
government of these cities as the Praetorian Guards did to that of 



HO W MODERN CIVILIZA TION MA V DECLINE. 383 

•declining Rome. He who would wear the purple, fill the curule 
chair, or have the fasces carried before him, must go or send his 
messengers to their camps, give them donations and make 
them promises. It is through these men that the rich corpora- 
tions and powerful pecuniary interests can pack the Senate 
and the bench with their creatures. It is these men who make 
School Directors, Supervisors, Assessors, Members of the 
Legislature, Congressmen. Why, there are many election dis- 
tricts in the United States in which a George Washington, a 
Benjamin Franklin, or a Thomas Jefferson could no more go 
to the lower house of a State Legislature than under the 
Ancient Regime a baseborn peasant could become a Marshal 
of France. Their very character would be an insuperable 
disqualification. 

In theory we are intense democrats. The proposal to 
sacrifice swine in the temple would hardly have excited 
greater horror and indignation in Jerusalem of old than would 
among us that of conferring a distinction of rank upon our 
most eminent citizen. But is there not growing up among us 
a class who have all the power without any of the virtues of 
aristocracy ? We have simple citizens who control thousands 
of miles of railroad, millions of acres of land, the means of 
livelihood of great numbers of men ; who name the Gover- 
nors of sovereign states as they name then* clerks, choose 
Senators as they choose attorneys, and whose will is as 
supreme with Legislatures as that of a French King sitting in 
bed of justice. The undercurrents of the times seem to 
sweep us back again to the old conditions from which w^e 
dreamed we had escaped. I'he development of the artisan 
and commercial classes gradually broke down feudalism 
after it had become so complete that men thought of heaven 
as organized on a feudal basis, and ranked the first and second 
persons of the Trinity as suzerain and tenant-in-chief. But 
now the development of manufactures and exchange, acting in 
a social organization in which land is made private property, 
threatens to compel every worker to seek a master, as the 
insecurity which followed the final break-up of the Roman 
Empire compelled every freeman to seek a lord. Nothing 
.seems exempt from this tendency. Industry everywhere 
tends to assume a form in which one is master and many 
serve. And when one is master and the others serve, the 
one will control the others, even in such matters as votes. 
Just as the English landlord votes his tenants, so does the New 
England mill-owner vote his operatives. 



384 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

There is no mistaking it — the very foundations of society- 
are being sapped before our eyes, while we ask, how is it 
possible that such a civilization as this, with its railroads, 
and daily newspapers, and electric telegraphs, should ever be 
destroyed ? While literature breathes but the belief that we 
have been, are, and for the future must be, leaving the savage 
state further and further behind us, there are indications that 
we are actually turning back again towards barbarism. Let me 
illustrate : One of the characteristics of barbarism is the 
low regard for the rights of person and of property. That 
the laws of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors imposed as penalty 
for murder a fine proportioned to the rank of the victim, 
while our law knows no distinction of rank, and protects the 
lowest from the highest, the poorest from the richest, by the 
uniform penalty of death, is looked upon as evidence of their 
barbarism and our civilization. And so, that piracy, and 
robbery, and slave-trading, and blackmailing, were once 
regarded as legitimate occupations, is conclusive proof of the 
rude state of development from which we have so far pro- 
gressed. 

But it is a matter of fact that, in spite of our laws, any one 
who has money enough and wants to kill another may go 
into any one of our great centers of population and business, 
and gratify his desire, and then surrender himself to justice, 
with the chances as a hundred to one that he wall suffer no 
greater penalty than a temporary imprisonment and the loss 
of a sum proportioned partly to his own wealth and partly to 
the wealth and standing of the man he kills. His money 
v/ill be paid, not to the family of the murdered man, whohave 
lost their protector ; not to the state, which has lost a citizen ; 
but to lawyers who understand how to secure delays, to find 
witnesses, and to get juries to disagree. 

And so, if a man steal enough, he may be sure that his 
punishment will practically amount but to the loss of. a part 
of the proceeds of his theft ; and if he steal enough to get 
off with a fortune, he will be greeted by his acquaintance as 
a viking might have been greeted after a successful cruise. 
Even though he robbed those who trusted him ; even though 
he robbed the widow and the fatherless ; he has only to get 
enough, and he may safely flaunt his wealth in the eyes of 
day. 

Now, the tendency in this direction is an increasing one. 
It is shown in greatest force where the inequalities in the 
distribjtion of wealth are greatest, and it. shows itself as they 



HOW MODERN CIVILIZA TION MA Y DECLINE. 385 

increase. If it be not a return to barbarism, what is it ? The 
failures of justice to which I have alluded are only illustrative 
of the increasing debilit}^ of our legal machinery in every 
department. It is becoming common to hear men say that 
it would be better to revert to first principles and abolish law, 
for then in self-defense the people would form Vigilance 
Committees and take justice into their own hands. Is this 
indicative of advance or retrogression ? 

AH this is matter of common observation. Though we 
may not speak it openly, the general faith in republican insti- 
tutions is, where they have reached their fullest development, 
narrowing and weakening. It is no longer that confident be- 
lief in republicanism as the source of national blessings that it 
once was. Thoughtful men are beginning to see its dangers, 
without seeing how to escape them ; are beginning to accept 
the view of Macaulay and distrust that of Jefferson.* And 
the people at large are becoming used to the growing corrup- 
tion. The most ominous political sign in the United States 
to-day is the growth of a sentiment which either doubts the 
existence of an honest man in public office or looks on him 
as a fool for not seizing his opportunities. That is to say, the 
people themselves are becoming corrupted. Thus in the 
United States to-day is republican government running the 
course it must inevitably follow under conditions which cause 
the unequal distribution of wealth. 

Where that course leads is clear to whoever will think. 
As corruption becomes chronic ; as public spirit is lost ; as 
traditions of honor, virtue, and patriotism are weakened ; as 
law is brought into contempt and reforms become hopeless ; 
then in the festering mass will be generated volcanic forces, 
which shatter and rend when seeming accident gives them 
vent. Strong, unscrupulous men, rising up upon occasion, 
will become the exponents of blind popular desires or fierce 
popular passions, and dash aside forms that have lost their 
vitality. The sword will again be mightier than the pen, and 
in carnivals of destruction brute force and wild frenzy will 
alternate with the lethargy of a declining civilization. 

I speak of the United States only because the United States 
is the most advanced of all the great nations. What shall 
we say of Europe, where dams of ancient law and custom 
pen up the swelling waters and standing armies weigh down 
the safety valves, though year by year the fires grow hotter 
underneath ? Europe tends to reiDublicanism under conditions 

* See Macaulay's letier to Randall, the biographer of Jefferson. 



386 THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

that will not admit of true republicanism — under condi- 
tions that substitute for the calm and august figure of Liberty 
the petroleuse and the guillotine ! 

Whence shall come the new barbarians ? Go through the 
squalid quarters of great cities, and you may see, even now, 
their gathering hordes ! How shall learning perish ? Men 
will cease to read, and books will kindle fires and be turned 
into cartridges ! 

It is startling to think how slight the traces that would be 
left of our civilization, did it pass through the throes which 
have accompanied the decline of every previous civilization. 
Paper will not last like parchment, nor are our most massive 
buildings and monuments to be compared in solidity with the 
rock-hewn temples and titanic edifices of the old civiliza- 
tions.^ And invention has given us, not merely the steam 
engine and the printing press, but petroleum, nitro-glycerine, 
and dynamite. 

Yet to hint, to-day, that our civilization may possibly be 
tending to decline, seems like the wildness of pessimism. 
The special tendencies to which I have alluded are obvious 
to thinking men, but with the majority of thinking men, as 
with the great masses, the belief in substantial progress is yet 
deep and strong — a fundamental belief which admits not the 
shadow of a doubt. 

But any one who will think over the matter will see that 
this must necessarily be the case where advance gradually 
passes into retrogression. For in social development, as in 
everything else, motion tends to persist in straight lines, and 
therefore, where there has been a previous advance, it is ex- 
tremely difficult to recognize decline, even wtien it has fully 
commenced ; there is an almost irresistible tendency to believe 
that the forward movement which has been advance, and is 
still going on, is still advance. The web of beliefs, customs, 
laws, institutions, and habits of thought, which each commu- 
nity is constantly spinning, and which produces in the individ- 
ual environed by it all the differences of national character, 
is never unraveled. That is to say, in the decline of civiliza- 
tion, communities do not go down by the same paths that they 
came up. For instance, the decline of civilization as mani- 
fested in government would not take us back from republican- 
ism to constitutional monarchy, and thence to the feudal sys- 

* It is also, it seems to me, instructive to note how inadequate and utterly mis- 
leading would be the idea of our civilization which could b« gained from the relig- 
ious and funereal monuments of our time, which are all we have from which to 
gain our ideas of the buried civilization?- 



HO W MODERN CIVILIZA TION MA Y DECLINE. 38" 

tern ; it would take us to imperatorship and anarchy. As man* 
ifested in religion, it would not take us back into the faiths 
of our forefathers, into Protestantism or Catholicity, but into 
new forms of superstition, of which possibly Mormonism and 
other even grosser " isms " may give some vague idea. As 
manifested in knowledge, it would not take us toward Ba* 
con, but toward the literati of China. 

And how the retrogression of civilization, following a period 
of advance, may be so gradual as to attract no attention at 
the time ; nay, how that decline must necessarily, by the 
great majority of men, be mistaken for advance, is easily 
seen. For instance, there is an enormous difference between 
Grecian art of the classic period and that of the lower 
empire ; yet the change was accompanied, or rather caused, 
by a change of taste. The artists who most quickly followed 
this change of taste were in their day regarded as the superior 
artists. And so of literature. As it became more vapid, 
puerile, and stilted, it would be in obedience to an altered 
taste, which would regard its increasing weakness as incr,eas- 
ing strength and beauty. The really good writer would not find 
readers ; he would be regarded as rude, dry, or dull. And 
so would the drama decline ; not because there was a lack of 
good plays, but because the prevailing taste became more and 
more that of a less cultured class, who, of course, regard that 
which they most admire as the best of its kind. And, so, too, of 
religion ; the superstitions which a superstitious people will 
add to it will be regarded by them as improvements. While, 
as the decline goes on, the return to barbarism, where it is 
not in itself regarded as an advance, will seem necessary to 
meet the exigencies of the times. 

For instance, flogging, as a punishment for certain offences, 
has been recently restored to the penal code of England, and 
has been strongly advocated on this side of the Atlantic, I 
express no opinion as to whether this is or is not a better 
punishment for crime than imprisonment. I only point to 
the fact as illustrating how an increasing amount of crime 
and an increasing embarassment as to the maintenance of 
prisoners (both obvious tendencies at present) might lead to 
a fuller return to the physical cruelty of barbarous codes. 
The use of torture in judicial investigations, which steadily 
grew with the decline of Roman civilization, it is thus easy to 
see, might, as manners brutahzed and crime increased, be de- 
manded as a necessary improvement of the criminal law. 

Whether in the present drifts of opinion and taste there 



388 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

are as yet any indications of retrogression, it is not necessary 
to inquire ; but there are many things about which there can 
be no dispute, which go to show that our civilization has 
reached a critical period,, and that unless a new start is made 
in the direction of social equality, the nineteenth century may 
to the future mark its climax. These industrial depressions, 
which cause as much waste and suffering as famines or 
wars, are like the twinges and shocks which precede 
paralysis. Everywhere is it evident that the tendency to in- 
equality, which is the necessary result of material progress 
where land is monopolized, cannot go much further without 
carrying our civilization into that downward path which is so 
easy to enter and so hard to abandon. Everywhere the 
increasing intensity of the struggle to live, the increasing 
necessity for straining every nerve to prevent being thrown 
down and trodden under foot in the scramble for wealth, is 
draining the forces which gain and maintain improvements. 
In every civilized country pauperism, crime, insanity, and 
suicides are increasing. In every civilized country the dis- 
eases are increasing which come from overstrained nerves, 
from insufficient nourishment, from squalid lodgings, from 
unwholesome and monotonous occupations, from premature 
labor of children, from the tasks and crimes which poverty 
imposes upon women. In every highly civilized country the 
expectation of life, which gradually rose for several centuries, 
and which seems to have culminated about the first quarter 
of this century, appears to be now diminishing.* 

It is not an advancing civilization that such figures show. 
It is a civilization which in its under-currents has already be- 
gun to recede. When the tide turns in bay or river from flood 
to ebb, it is not all at once ; but here it still runs on, though 
there it has begun to recede. When the sun passes the me- 
ridian, it can only be told by the way the short shadows fall ; 
for the heat of the day yet increases. But as sure as the 
turning tide must soon run full ebb ; as sure as the dechning 
^un must bring darkness, so sure is it, that though knowledge 
yet increases and invention marches on, and new states are 
being settled, and cities still expand, yet civilization has be- 
gun to wane when, in proportion to population, we must 
build more and more pricons, more and more almshouses, 

* Statistics which show these things are collected in convenient form in a vol- 
ume entitled " Deterioration and Race Education," by Samuel Royce, which has 
been largely distributed by the venerable Peter Cooper of New York. Strangely 
enough, the only remedy proposed by Mr. Royce is the establishment of Kinder- 
garten schools. 



HO W MODERN CI VI LIZ A TION MA Y DECLINE. 389 

more and more insane asylums. It is not from top to bottom 
that societies die ; it is from bottom to top. 

But there are evidences far more palpable than any that 
can be given by statistics, of tendencies to the ebb of civili- 
zation. There is a vague but general feeling of disappoint- 
ment ; an increased bitterness among the working classes ; a 
widespread feeling of unrest and brooding revolution. If 
this were accompanied by a definite idea of how relief is to 
be obtained, it would be a hopeful sign ; but it is not. Though 
the schoolmaster has been abroad some time, the general 
power of tracing effect to cause does not seem a whit im- 
proved. The reaction towards protectionism, as the reaction 
toward other exploded fallacies of government, shows this."^ 
And even the philosophic free-thinker cannot look upon 
that vast change in religious ideas that is now sweeping over 
the civilized world, without feeling that this tremendous fact 
may have most momentous relations, which only the future 
can develop. For what is going on is not a change in the 
form of religion, but the negation and destruction of the 
ideas from which religion springs. Christianity is not simply 
clearing itself of superstitions, but in the popular mind it is 
dying at the root, as the old paganisms were dying when 
Christianity entered the world. And nothing arises to take 
its place. The fundamental ideas of an intelligent Creator 
and of a future life are in the general mind rapidly weaken- 
ing. Now, whether this may or may not be in itself an 
advance, the importance of the part which religion has 
played in the world's history shows the importance of the 
change that is now going on. Unless human nature has sud- 
denly altered in what the universal history of the race shows 
to be its deepest characteristics, the mightiest actions and 
reactions are thus preparing. Such stages of thought have 
heretofore always marked periods of transition. On a 
smaller scale and to a less depth (for I think any one who 
will notice the drift of our literature, and talk upon such sub- 
jects with the men he meets, will see that it is sub-soil and 
not surface plowing that materialistic ideas are now doing), 
such a state of thought preceded the French Revolution. 
But the closest parallel to the wreck of religious ideas now 
going on is to be found in that period in which ancient civiliza- 
tion began to pass from splendor to decline. What change 

* In point of constructive statesmanship — the recognition of fundamental prin- 
ciples and the adaptation of means to ends, the Constitution of the United States, 
adoptecf a century ago, is greatly superior to the latest State Constitutions, the 
most recent of which is that of California— a piece of utter botchwork. 



390 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

may come, no mortal man can tell, but that some great 
change must come, thoughtful men begin to feel. The civil- 
ized world is trembling on the verge of a great movement. 
Either it must be a leap upward, which will open the way to 
advances yet undreamed of, or it must be a plunge down- 
<vard, which will carry us back toward barbarism. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE CENTRAL TRUTH. 

In the short space to which this latter part of out 
inquiry is necessarily confined, I have been obliged to 
omit much that I would like to say, and to touch 
briefly where an exhaustive consideration would not be 
out of place. 

Nevertheless, this, at least, is evident, that the truth 
to which we were led in the politico-economic branch 
of our inquiry, is as clearly apparent in the rise and 
fall of nations and the growth and decay of civilizations, 
and that it accords with those deep-seated recognitions 
of relation and sequence that we denominate moral per- 
ceptions. Thus have been given to our conclusions the 
greatest certitude and highest sanction. 

This truth involves both a menace and a promise. 
It shows that the evils arising from the unjust and 
unequal distribution of wealth, which are becoming more 
and more apparent as modern civilization goes on, are 
not incidents of progress, but tendencies which must 
bring progress to a halt ; that they will not cure them- 
selves, but, on the contrary, must, unless their cause is 
removed, grow greater and greater, until they sweep us back 
into barbarism by the road eveiy previous civilization has 
trod. But it also shows that these evils are not imposed 
by natural laws ; that they spring solely from social mal- 
adjustments which ignore natural laws, and that in remov- 
ing their cause we shall be giving an enormous im- 
petus to progress. . 

The poverty which in the midst of abundance pinches 
and embrutes men, and all the manifold evils which flow 
from it, spring from a denial of justice. In permitting 
the monopolization of the opportunities which nature 



THE CENTRAL TRUTH. 391 

freely offers to all, we have ignored the fundamental law of 
justice — for so far as we. can see, when we view things 
upon a large scale, justice seems to be the supreme law 
of the universe. But by sweeping away this injustice 
and asserting the rights of all men to natural opportuni- 
ties, we shall conform ourselves to the law — we shall 
remove the great cause of unnatural inequality in the 
distribution of wealth and power ; we shall abolish pov- 
erty ; tame the ruthless passions . of greed ; dry up the 
springs of vice and misery ; light in dark places the lamp 
of knowledge ; give new vigor to invention and a fresh 
impulse to discovery ; substitute political strength for 
political weakness ; and make tyranny and anarchy impossible. 

The reform I have proposed accords with all that is polit- 
ically, socially, or morally desirable. It has the qualities 
of a true reform, for it will make all other reforms easier. 
What is it but the carrying out in letter and spirit of 
the truth enunciated in the Declaration of Independence — 
the " self-evident " truth that is the heart and soul of the 
Declaration — ^''That all men are created equal; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that 
among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness /^^ 

These rights are denied when the equal right to land — on 
which and by which men alone can live — is denied. 
Equality of political rights will not compensate for the 
denial of the equal right to the bounty of nature. Political 
liberty, when the equal right to land is denied, becomes, 
as population increases and invention goes on, merely the 
liberty to compete for employment at starvation wages. 
This is the truth that we have ignored. And so there 
come beggars in our streets and tramps on our roads ; 
and poverty enslaves men whom we boast are political 
sovereigns ; and want breeds ignorance that our schools 
cannot enlighten ; and citizens vote as their masters 
dictate; and the demagogue usurps the .part of the 
statesman ; and gold weighs in the scales of justice ; and 
in high places sit those who do not pay to civic virtue 
even the compliment of hypocrisy; and the pillars of the 
republic that we thought so strong already bend under an 
increasing strain. 

We honor Liberty in name and in form^. We set up her 
statues and sound her praises. But we have not fully trusted 
her. And with our growth so grow her demands. She 
will have no half service ! i2eoD 



392 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

Liberty ! it is a word to conjure with, not to vex the ear in 
empty boastings. For liberty means justice, and justice is 
tlie natural law — the law of health and symmetry and strength, 
of fraternity and co-operation. 

They who look upon Liberty as having accomplished her 
mission when she has abolished hereditary privileges and 
given men the ballot, who think of her as having no further 
relations to the every-day affairs of life, have not seen her 
real grandeur — to them the poets who have sung of her must 
seem rhapsodists, and her martyrs fools ! As the sun is the 
lord of life, as well as of light ; as his beams not merely 
pierce the clouds, but support all growth, supply all motion, 
and call forth from what would otherwise be a cold and inert 
mass, all the infinite diversities of being and beauty, so is 
liberty to mankind. It is not for an abstraction that men 
have toiled and died ; that in every age the witnesses of 
Liberty have stood forth, and the martyrs of Liberty have 
suffered. 

We speak of Liberty as one thing, and of virtue, wealth, 
knowledge, invention, national strength and national inde- 
pendence as other things. But, of all these, Liberty is the 
source, the mother, the necessary condition. She is to vir- 
tue what light is to color ; to wealth what sunshine is to 
grain ; to knowledge what eyes are to sight. She is the gen- 
ius of invention, the brawn of national strength, the spirit of 
national independence. Where Liberty rises, there virtue 
grows, wealth increases, knowledge expands, invention mul- 
tiplies human powers, and in strength' and spirit the freer 
nation rises among her neighbors as Saul amid his brethren — 
taller and fairer. Where Liberty sinks, there virtue fades, 
wealth diminishes, knowledge is forgotten, invention ceases, 
and empires once mighty in arms and arts become a helpless 
prey to freer barbarians ! 

Only in broken gleams and partial light has the sun of Lib- 
erty yet beamed among men, but all progress hath she called 
forth. 

Liberty came to a race of slaves crouching under Egyptian 
whips, and led them forth from the House of Bondage. She 
hardened them in the desert and made of them a race of con- 
querors. The free spirit of the Mosaic law took their think- 
ers up to hights where they beheld the unity of God, and in- 
spired their poets with strains that yet phrase the highest 
exaltations of thought. Liberty dawned on the Phenician 
coast, and ships passed the Pillars of Hercules to plow the 



THE CENTRAL TRUTH. 393 

anknown sea. She shed a partial light on Greece, and mar- 
ble grew to shapes of ideal beaut}^, words became the instru- 
ments of subtlest thought, and against the scanty; militia of 
free cities the countless hosts of the Great King broke like 
surges against a rock. She cast her beams on the four-acre 
farms of Italian husbandmen, and born of her strength a 
power came forth tliat conquered the world. They glinted 
from shields of German warriors, and Augustus wept his 
legions. Out of the night that followed her eclipse, her slant- 
ing rays fell again on free cities, and a lost learning revived, 
modern civilization began, a new world was unveiled ; and as 
Liberty grew, so grew art, wealth, power, knowledge, and re- 
finement. In the history of every nation we may read the 
same truth. It was the strength born of Magna Charta that 
won Crecy and Agincourt. It was the revival of Liberty 
from the despotism of the Tudors that glorified the Eliza- 
bethan age. It was the spirit that brought a crowned tyrant 
to the block that planted here the seed of a mighty tree. It 
was the energy of ancient freedom that, the moment it had 
gained unity, made Spain the mightiest power of the world, 
only to fall to the lowest depth of weakness when tyranny 
succeeded liberty. See, in France, all intellectual vigor dy- 
ing under the tyranny of the Seventeenth Century to revive 
in splendor as Liberty awoke in the Eighteenth, and on the 
enEranchisement of French peasants in the Great Revolution, 
basing the wonderful strength that has in our time defied de- 
feat. 

Shall we not trust her ? 

In our time, as in times before, creep on the insidious 
forces that, producing inequality, destroy Liberty. On the 
horizon the clouds begin to lower. Liberty calls to us again. 
We must follow her further ; we must trust her fully. Either 
we must wholly accept her or she will not sta)^ It is not 
enough that men should vote; it is not enough 
that they should be theoredcally equal before the 
law. They must have liberty to avail themselves of the 
opportunities and means of life ; they must stand on equal 
terms with reference to the bounty of nature. Either this, or 
Liberty withdraws her light! Either this, or darkness comes 
on, and the very forces that procuress has evolved turn to 
powers that work destruction. This is the universal law. 
This is the lesson of the centuries. Unless its foundations 
be laid in justice the social structure cannot stand. 

Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice. In 



394 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

allowing one man to own the land on which and from which 
other men must live, we have made them his bondsmen in a 
degree which increases as material progress goes on. This is 
the subtile alchemy that in ways they do not realize is 
extracting from the masses in every civilized country the 
fruits of their weary toil ; that is instituting a harder and 
more hopeless slavery in place of that vhich has been 
destroyed; that is bringing political desptipm out of politi- 
cal freedom, and must soon transmute democratic institutions 
into anarchy. 

It is this that turns the blessings of matoriql progress into 
a curse. It is this that crowds human bei;igs into noisome 
cellars and squalid tenement houses ; that fills prisons and 
brothels ; that goads men with want and consumes them with 
greed ; that robs women of the grace and beauty of perfect 
womanhood; that takes from little children the joy and inno- 
cence of life's morning. 

Civilization so based cannot continue. The eternal laws 
of the universe forbid it. Ruins of dead empires testify, and 
the witness that is in every soul answers, that it cannot be. 
It is something grander than Benevolence, something more 
august than Charity — it is Justice herself that demands of us 
to right this wrong. Justice that will not be denied ; that 
cannot be put off — Justice that with the scales carries the 
sword. Shall we ward the stroke with liturgies and prayers ? 
Shall we avert the decrees of immutable law by raising 
churches when hungry infants moan and weary mothers 
weep ? 

Though it may take the language of prayer, it is blasphemy 
that attributes to the inscrutable decrees of Providence the 
suffering and brutishness that come of poverty ; that turns 
with folded hands to the All-Father and lays on Him the 
responsibility for the v/ant and crime of our great cit:es. We 
degrade the Everlasting. We slander the Just One. A mer- 
ciful man would have better ordered the world ; a just man 
would crush with his foot such an ulcerous ant-hill ! It is 
not the Almighty, but we .vho are responsible for the vice 
and misery that fester amid our civilization. The Creator 
shower,') upon us his gifts — more than enough for all. But 
like swine scrambling for food, we tread them in the mire — 
tread them in the mire, while we tear and rend each other ! 

In the very centers of our civilization to-day are want and 
suffering enough to make sick at heart whoever does not 
close his eyes and steel his nerves. Dare we turn to the 



THE CENTRAL TRUTH. ' 395 

Creator and ask Him to relieve it? Supposing the prayer 
were heard, and at the behest with which the universe sprang 
into being there should glow in the sun a greater power ; new 
virtue fill the air ; fresh vigor the soil ; that for every blade 
of grass that now grovs^s two should spring up, and the seed 
that now increases fifty fold should increase a hundred fold ! 
Would poverty be abated or want relieved ? Manifestly no ! 
Whatever benefit would accrue would be but temporary. 
The new powers streaming through the material universe 
could only be utilized through land. And land, being pri- 
vate property, the classes that now monopolize the bounty of 
the Creator would monopolize all the new bounty. Land 
owners would alone be benefitted. Rents would increase, 
but wages would still tend to the starvation point ! 

This is not merely a deduction of political economy ; it is 
a fact of experience. We know it because we have seen it. 
Within our own times, under our very eyes, that Power which 
is above all, and in all, and through all ; that Power of which 
the whole universe is but the manifestation ; that Power 
which maketh all things, and without which is not anything 
made tiiat is made, has increased the bounty which men 
may enjoy, as truly as though the fertility of nature had been 
increased. Into the mind of one came the thought that 
harnessed steam for the service of mankind. To the inner 
ear of another was whispered the secret that compels the 
lightning to bear a message round the globe. In every 
direction have the laws of matter been revealed; in every 
department of industry have arisen arms of iron and fingers 
of steel, whose effect upon the production of wealth has 
been precisely the same as an increase in the fertility of 
nature. What has been the result ? Simply that land 
owners get all the gain. The wonderful discoveries and 
inventions of our century have neither increased wages nor 
lightened toil. The effect has simply been to make the few 
richer ; the many more helpless ! 

Can it be that the gifts of the Creator may be thus misap- 
propriated with impunity? Is it a light thing that labor 
should be robbed of its earnings while greed rolls in wealth — 
that the many should want while the few are surfeited ? 
Turn to history, and on every page may be read the lesson 
that such wrong never goes unpunished ; that the Nemesis 
that follows injustice never falters nor sleeps ! Look around 
to-day. Can this state of things continue ? May we even 
say, " After us the deluge 1 " Nay ; the pillars of the state are' 



396 THE LA W OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

trembling even now, and the very foundations of society 
begin to quiver v/ith pent-up forces that glow underneath. 
The struggle that must either revivify, or convulse in ruin, is 
near at hand, if it be not already begun. 

The fiat has gone forth ! With steam and electricity, and 
the new powers born of progress, forces have entered the 
world that will either compel us to a higher plane or over- 
whelm us, as nation after nation, as civilization after 
civilization, have been overwhelmed before. It is the delu- 
sion which precedes destruction that sees in the popular 
unrest with which the civilized world is feverishly pulsing, 
only the passing effect of ephemeral causes. Between 
democratic ideas and the aristocratic adjustments of society 
there is an irreconcilable conflict. Here in the United 
States, as there in Europe, it may be seen arising. We 
cannot go on permitting men to vote and forcing them to 
tramp. We cannot go on educating boys and girls in our 
public schools and then refusing them the right to earn an 
honest living. We cannot go on prating of the inalienable 
rights of man and then denying the inalienable right to the 
bounty of the Creator. Even now, in old bottles the new 
wine begins to ferment, and eleiiiental forces gather for the 
strife ! 

But if, while there is yet time, we turn to Justice and obey 
her, if we trust Liberty and follow her, the dangers that now 
threaten must disappear, the forces that now menace will 
turn to agencies of elevation. Think of the powers now 
wasted ; of the infinite fields of knowledge yet to be 
explored ; of the possibilities of which the wondrous inven- 
tions of this century give us but a hint. With want 
destroyed ; with greed changed to noble passions ; with the 
fraternity that is born of equality taking the place of the 
jealousy and fear that now- array men against each other; 
with mental power loosed by conditions that give to the 
humblest comfort and leisure; and who shall measure the 
hights to which our civilization may soar? Words fail the 
thought i It is the Golden Age of which poets have sung 
and high-raised seers have told in metaphor ! It is the 
glorious vision which has always haunted man with gleams of 
fitful splendor. It is what he saw whose eyes at Patmos 
were closed in a trance. It is the culmination of Christianity 
— the City of God on earth, with its walls of jasper and its 
gates of pearl ! It is the reign of the Prince of Peace ! 



CONCLUSION. 



The days of the nations bear no trace 

Of all the sunshine so far foretold ; 
The cannon speaks in the teacher's place — 

The age is weary with work and gold, 
And high hopes wither, and memories wane ; 

On hearths and altars the fires are dead ; 
But that brave faith hath not lived in vain — 

And this is. all that our watcher said. 

— Fra7ices Brown;, 



THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 

My task is done. 

Yet the thought still mounts. The problems we have been 
considering lead into a problem higher and deeper still. 
Behind the problems of social life lies the problem of 
individual life. I have found it impossible to think of the 
one without thinking of the other, and so^ I imagine,. wiR it 
be with those who, reading this book, ?p with me in thought. 
For, as sa3^s Guizot, " when the history of civilization is com- 
pleted, when there is nothing more to say as to our present 
existence, man inevitably asks himself whether ail is exhaust- 
ed, whether he has reached the end of all things '^. '' 

This problem I cannot now discuss. I only speak of it 
because the thought which, while writing this book, has come 
with inexpressible cheer to me, may also be of cheer -to some 
who read it ; for, whatever be its fate, it will be read by some 
who in their heart of hearts have taken the cross of a new 
crusade. This thought will come to them without my 
suggestion ; but we are surer that we see a star when we know 
that others also see it. 

The truth that I have tried to make clear will not find easy 
acceptance. If that could be, it would have been accepted 
long ago. If that could be, it would never have been 
obscured. But it will find friends — those who will toil for it , 
suffer for it ; if need be, die for it. This is the power oi 
Truth. 

Win it at length prevail ? Ultimatelv. ves. But in our own 



398 CONCLUSION 

times, or in times of which any memory of us remains, who 
shall say ? 

For the man who, seeing the want and misery, the ignor- 
ance and brutishness caused by unjust social institutions, sets 
himself, in so far as he has strength, to right them, there is 
disappointment and bitterness. So it has been of old time. 
So is it even now. But the bitterest thought — and it some- 
times comes to the best and bravest — is that of the hope- 
lessness of the effort, the futility of the sacrifice. To how 
few of those who sow the seed is it given to see it grow, or 
even with certainty to know that it will grow. 

Let us not disguise it. Over and over agam has the 
standard of Truth and Justice been raised in this world. 
Over and over again has it been trampled down — oftentimes 
in blood. If they are weak forces that arfe opposed to 
Truth, how should Error so long prevail ? If Justice has 
but to raise her head to have Injustice flee before her, how 
should the wail of the oppressed so long go up ? 

But for those who see Truth and would follow her ; for 
those who recognize Justice and would stand for her, suc- 
cess is not the only thing. Success ! Wh}^, Falsehood has 
often that to give ; and Injustice often has that to give. 
Must not Truth and Justice have something to give that is 
their own by proper right — theirs . in essence, and not by 
accident .'' 

That they have, and that here and now, every one who 
has felt their exaltation knows. But sometimes the clouds 
sweep down. It is sad, sad reading, the lives of the men 
who would have done something for their fellows. To 
Socrates they gave the hemlock ; Gracchus they killed with 
sticks and stones ; and One, greatest and purest of all, they 
crucified. These seem but types. To-day Russian prisons 
are full, and in long processions men and women, who but 
for high-minded patriotism might have lived in ease and 
luxury, move in chains toward the death-in-life of Siberia. 
And in penury and want, in neglect and contempt, destitute 
even of the sympathy that would have been so sweet, how 
many in every country have closed their eyes ? This we 
see. 

But do we see it all? 

In writing I have picked up a newspaper. In it is a short 
account, evidently translated from a semi-official report, of 
the execution of three Nihilists at Kieff — the Prussian subject 
Brandtner, the unknown man calling himself Antonoff, and 



CONCLUSION. 399 

the nobleman Ossinsky. At the foot oi the gallows they 
were permitted to kiss one another. " Then the hangman 
cut the rope, the surgeons pronounced the victims dead, the 
bodies were buried at the foot of the scaffold, and the 
Nihilists were given up to eternal oblivion." Thus says the 
account. 

I do not believe it. No ; not to oblivion ! 

I have in this inquiry followed the course of my own 
thought. When, in mind, I set out on it, I had no theory to 
support, no conclusions to prove. Only, when I first realized 
the squalid misery of a great city, it appalled and tormented 
me, and would not let me rest, for thinking of what caused it 
and how it could be cured. 

But out of this inquiry has come to me something I did not 
think to find, and a faith that was dead revives. 

The yearning for a further life is natural and deep. It 
grows with intellectual growth, and perhaps none really feel 
it more than those who have begun to see how great is the 
universe and how infinite are the vistas which every advance 
in knowledge opens before us — vistas vv^hich would require 
nothing short of eternity to explore. But in the mental 
atmosphere of our times, to the great majority of men on 
whom mere creeds have lost their hold, it seems impossible 
to look on this yearning save as a vain and childish hope, 
arising from man's egotism, and for which there is not the 
slightest ground or warrant, but which, on the contrary, seems 
inconsistent with positive knowledge. 

Now, when we come to analyze and trace up the ideas that 
thus destroy the hope of a future life, we shall find them, T 
think, to have their source, not in any revelations of physical 
science, but in certain teachings of political and social science 
which have deeply permeated thought in all directions. They 
liave their root in the doctrines, that there is a tendency to 
ilie production of more human beings than can be provided 
for ; that vice and misery are the result of natural laws, and 
the means by which advance goes on ; and that human 
progress is by a slow race development. These doctrines, 
which have been generally accepted as approved truth, do 
what (except as scientific interpretations have been colored 
by them) the extensions of physical science do not do — they 
reduce the individual to insignificance ; they destroy the idea 
that there can be in the ordering of the universe any regard 



400 CONCLUSION. 

for his existence, or any recognition of what we call moral 
qualities. 

It is difficult to reconcile the idea of human immortality 
with the idea that nature wastes men by constantly bringing 
them into being where there is no room for them. It is 
impossible to reconcile the idea of an intelligent and benefi- 
cent Creator with the belief that the wretchedness and 
degradation which are the lot of such a large proportion of 
human kind result from his enactments ; while the idea that 
man mentally and physically is the result of slow modifica- 
tions perpetuated by heredity, irresistibly suggests the idea 
that it is the race life, not the individual life, which is the 
object of human existence. Thus has vanished wilh many of 
us, and is still vanishing with more of us, that belief which in 
the battles and ills of life affords the strongest support and 
tleepest consolation. 

Now, in the inquiry through which we have passed, we 
have met these doctrines and seen their fallacy. We have 
seen that population does not tend to outrun subsistence ; we 
have seen that the waste of human powers and the prodigality 
of human suffering do not spring from natural laws, but from 
the ignorance and selfishness of men in refusing to conform 
to natural laws. We have seen that human progress is not 
by altering the nature of men ; but that on the contrary, 
the nature of men seems, generally speaking, always the 
same. 

Thus the nightmare which is banishing from the modern 
world the belief in a future life is destroyed. Not that all 
difficulties are removed — -for turn which way we may, we 
come to what we cannot comprehend ; but that difficulties are 
removed which seem conclusive and insuperable. And, thus, 
hope springs up. 

But this is not all. 

Political Economy has been called the dismal science, and 
as currendv taught, is hopeless and despairing. But this, as 
we have seen, is solely because she has been degraded and 
shackled ; her truths dislocated ; her harmonies ignored ; the 
word she would utter gagged in her mouth, and her protest 
against wrong turned into an indorsement of mjustice. Freed, 
as I have tried to free her — in her own proper symmetry, 
Political Economy is radiant with hope. 

For properly understood, the laws which govern the produc- 
tion ^nd distribution of wealth show that the want and in jus- 



CONCLUSION. \o\ 

tice of the present social state are not necessary ; but that on 
the contrary a social state is possible in which poverty would 
be unknown, and all the better qualities and higher powers of 
human nature would have opportunity for full development. 

And, further than this, when we see that social develop- 
ment is governed neither by a Special Providence nor by a 
merciless fate, but by law, at once unchangeable and benefi- 
cent ; when we see that human will is the great factor, and 
that taking men in the aggregate, their condition is as they 
make it ; when we see that economic law and moral law are 
essentially one, and that the truth which the intellect grasps 
after toilsome effort is but that which the moral sense 
reaches by a quick intuition, a flood of light breaks in upon 
the problem of individual life. These countless millions like 
ourselves, who on this earth of ours have passed and still are 
passing, with their joys and sorrows, their toil and their 
striving, their aspirations and their fears, their strong 
perceptions, of things deeper than sense, their common feelings 
which form the basis even of the most divergent creeds — 
their little lives do not seem so much like meaningless waste. 

The great fact which Science in all her branches shows is 
the universality of law. Wherever he can trace it, whether in 
the fall of an apple or in the revolution of binary suns, the 
astronomer sees the working of the same law, which operates 
in the minutest divisions in which we may distinguish space 
as it does in the immeasurable distances with which his 
science deals. Out of that which lies beyond his telescope 
comes a moving body and again it disappears. So far as he 
can trace its course the law is ignored. Does he say that this 
is an exception ? On the contrary, he says that this is merely 
a part of its orbit that he has seen ; that beyond the reach of 
his telescope the law holds good. He makes his calculations, 
and after centuries they are proved. 

Now, if we trace out the laws which govern human life in 
society, we find that in the largest as in the smallest com- 
munity they are the same. We find that what seem at first 
sight like divergences and exceptions, are but manifestations 
of the same principles. And we find that everywhere we 
can trace it, the social law runs into and conforms with the 
moral law ; that in the life of a community, justice infallibly 
brings its reward and injustice its punishment. But this we 
cannot see in individual life. If we look merely at individual 
life we cannot see that the laws of the universe have the 
slightest relation to good or bad, to right or wrong, to just or 
26 



402 conclusion: 

unjust.* Shall we then say tliat the law which is manifest 
in social life is not true of individual life ? It is not scientific 
to say so. We would not say so in reference to anything 
else. Shall we not rather say this simply proves that we do 
not see the whole of individual life ? 

The laws which Political Economy discovers, like the facts 
and relations of physical nature, harmonize with what seems 
to be the law of mental development— not a necessary and 
involuntary progress, but a progress in which the human will 
is an initiatory force. But in life, as we are cognizant of it, 
mental development can go but a little way. The mind 
hardly begins to awake ere the bodily powers decline — it but 
becomes dimly conscious of the vast fields before it, but 
begins to learn and use its strength, to recognize relations 
and extend its sympathies, when, with the death of the body, 
it passes away. Unless there is something more, there seems 
here a break, a failure. Whether it be a Humboldt or a 
Herschel, a Moses who looks from Pisgah, a Joshua who 
leads the host, or one of those sweet and patient souls who in 
narraw circles live radiant lives, there seems, if mind and 
character here developed can go no further, a purposelessness 
inconsistent with what we can see of the linked sequence of 
the universe . 

By a fundamental law of our minds — the law, in fact, upon 
which Political Economy relies in all her deductions — we 
cannot conceive of a means without an end ; a contrivance 
without an object. Now, to all nature, so far as we come in 
contact with it in this world, the support and employment of 
the intelligence that is in man furnishes such an end and 
object. But unless man himself may rise to or bring forth 
something hiojher his existence is unintelligible. So strong 
is this metaphysical necessity that those who deny to the 
individual anything more than this life are compelled to 
transfer the idea of perfectibility to the race. But as we have 
seen (and the argument could have been made much more 
complete) there is nothing whatever to show any essential 

* Let us not delude our children. If for no other reason than for that which 
Plato o-ives that when they come to discard that which we told them as pious faLle 
they will also discard that which we told them as truth. The virtues which rela-e 
to self do crenerally bring their reward. Eiiher a merchant or a thief will be more 
successful'^if he ba sober, prudent, and faithful to his promises ; but as to the 
virtues which do not relate to self — 

" It seems a story from the world of spirits. 
When any one obtains that which he merits. 
Or any merits that which he obtains." 



CONCLUSIOK. 403 

race improvement. Human progress is not the improvement 
of human nature. The advances in which civiUzation 
consists are not secured in the constitution of man, but in 
the constitution of society. Tliey are thus not fixed and 
permanent, but may at any time be lost — nay, are constantly 
tending to be lost. And further than this, if human life does 
not continue beyond what we see of it here, then we are con- 
fronted with regard to the race, with the same difficulty as 
with the individual. For it is as certain that the race must 
die as it is that the individual must die. We know that there 
have been geologic conditions under which human life was 
impossible on this earth. We know that they must return 
again. Even now, as the earth circles on her appointed orbit, 
the northern ice cap slowly thickens, and the time gradually 
approaches when its glaciers will flow again, and austral seas, 
sweeping northward, bury the seats of present civilization 
under ocean wastes, as it may be they now bury what was 
once as high a civilization as our own. And beyond these 
periods, science discerns a dead earth, an exhausted sun — a 
time when, clashing together, the solar system shall resolve 
itself into a gaseous form, again to begin immeasurable muta- 
tions. 

What then is the meaning of life — of life absolutely and 
inevitably bounded by death ? To me it only seems intelli- 
gible as the avenue and vestibule to another life. And its 
facts seem only explainable upon a theory which cannot be 
expressed but in myth and symbol, and which, everywhere 
and at all times, the myths and symbols in which men have 
tried to portray their deepest perceptions do in some form 
express. 

The scriptures of the men who have been and gone — the 
Bibles, the Zend Avestas, the Vedas, the Dhammapadas, and 
the Korans ; the esoteric doctrines of old philosophies, the 
inner meaning of grotesque religions, the dogmatic con- 
stitutions of Ecumenical Councils, the preachings of Foxes, 
and Wesleys, and Savonarolas, the traditions of red Indians, 
and beliefs of black savages, have a heart and core in which 
they agree — a something which seems like the variously 
distorted apprehensions of a primary truth. And out of the 
chain of thought we have been following there seems to 
vaguely rise a glimpse of what they vaguely saw— a shadowy 
gleam of ultimate relations, the endeavor to express which 
inevitably falls into type and allegory; A garden in which 



404 CONCLUSION. 

are set the trees of good and evil. A vineyard in which 
there is the Master's work to do. A passage — from Hfe 
behind to hfe beyond. A trial and a struggle, of which we 
cannot see the end. 

Look around to-day. 

Lo ! here, now, in our civilized society, the old allegories 
yet have a meaning, the old myths are still true. Into the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death yet often leads the path of 
duty, through the streets of Vanity Fair walk Christian and 
Faithful, and on Greatheart's armor ring the clanging blows. 
Ormuzd still fights with Ahriman — the Prince of Light with 
the Powers of Darkness. He who will hear, to him the 
clarions of the battle call. 

How they call, and call, and call, till the heart swells that 
hears them ! Strong soul and high endeavor, the world needs 
them now. Beauty still lies imprisoned, and iron wheels go 
over the good and true and beautiful that might spring from 
human lives. 

And they who fight with Ormuzd, though they may not 
know each other — somewhere, sometime, will the muster roll 
be called. 

Though Truth and Rignt seem often overborne, we may 
not see it all. How can we see it all ? All that is passing, 
even here, we cannot tell. The vibrations of matter which 
give the sensations of light and color become to us indis- 
tinguishable when they pass a certain point. It is only 
within a like range that we have cognizance of sounds. 
Even animals have senses which we have not. And, here ? 
Compared with the solar system our earth is but an indis- 
tinguishable speck ; and the solar system itself shrivels into 
nothingness when gauged with the star depths. Shall we 
say that what passes from our sight passes into oblivion t 
No ; not into oblivion. Far, far beyond our ken the eternal 
laws must hold their sway. 

The hope that rises is the heart of all religions ! The 
poets have sung it, the seers have told it, and in its deepest 
pulses the heart of man throbs responsive to its truth. 
This, that Plutarch said, is what in all times and in all 
tongues has been said by the pure-hearted and strong-sighted, 
who, standing as it were on the mountain tops of thought 



CONCLUSION. 4C5 

and looking over the shadowy ocean, have beheld the loom of 
land : 

" Men^s souls, encompassed here with bodies and passions^ 
have no communication with God, except what they can reach 
to in conceptio7i only, by ?neans of philosophy, as by a kind of 
an obscure dream. But when they are loosed fro7n the body, 
and removed into the unseen, invisible, impassable and pure 
region, this God is thefi their leader and king ; they there, as 
it were, hanging on him wholly, and beholdiiig without weari- 
ness and passionately affecting that beauty which cannot be 
expressed or uttered by men,'^ 



INDEX. 



Bagehot, Walter, arrest of civilization, 
344-345 ; why barbarians waste away, 
357-360. 

Bastiat, cause of interest. 127-138. 

Bisset. Andrew, knight's service, 277 n. 

Buckle, assumes current doctrine of 
wages, 17 ; on Malthus, 69, 74-75 ; inter- 
est and profits, 116 ; relation between 
rent, wages and interest, 125 n. 

Cairnes, J. E., high wages and interest 
in new countries, tq. 

California, economic principles exempli- 
fied in, 18, 48-49, 60-61, 106-107, 127-128, 
186-187, 197-199, 211, 248-249, 277-279, 
284, 288, 313. 

Capital, current doctrine of its relation 
to wages, 16-17 ; idle in industrial 
depressions, 19 ; theory that wages are 
drawn from, 19-20; deductions from 
this theory, 21 ; varying definitions of, 
27-29 ; difficulties besetting use of term, 
30 ; exclusions of term, 31 ; distin- 
guished from wealth, 34-39^ 55756 ; 
used in two senses, 44-45 ; definitions 
of Smith, Ricardo, McCulloch and Mill 
compared, 34-36 ; wages not drawn 
from, 21-25, 39-54 ; do^s not limit 
industry, 23-25, 45-46, 62-66 ; does not 
maintain laborers, 54-61 ; modes in 
which it aids labor, 61, 137-138, 143-144 ; 
real functions of, 61-67 ; "^^.y limit 
form and productiveness of industry, 
62-63 ; apparent want of generally due 
to some other want, 63-66 ; limited by 
requirements of production, 66 ; pov- 
erty not due to scarcity of, 66 ; not nec- 
essary to production, 120-121 ; a form 
of labor, 120, 146, 149 ; rts essence, 132 ; 
spurious, 138-143 ; not fixed in quan- 
tity, 143 ; if the only active factor in 
production, 148-149 ; its profits as 
affected by wages, 223-224 ; wastes 
when not used, 226 ; invested upon 
possessory titles, 279. 

Carey, Henry C, on capital, 29 : rent, 
165. 

China, cause of poverty and famine, 90 ; 
civilization, 344-345. 

Civilization, what, 341 ; prevailing belief 
as to progress of, 341-343 ; arrest of, 
344-349 : differences in, 349-361 ; its 
law, 361-377 ; retrogression, 346-349, 
387 ; to endure must be based on jus- 
tice, 394-396 ; character of European, 

^.373, 377. .^„ 

Civilization, modern, its riddle, 12 ; has 
not improved condition of the lowest 
class. 204-207 ; development of, 270- 
277 ; superiority, 374-375 ; may decline, 
377-390 ; indications of retrogression, 
387-390 ; its possibilities, 325-338, 396. 



Communities, industrial, extent of, 145. 

Confucius, descendants of, 83. 

Consumption, supported by contempora^ 
neous production, 56-58 ; demand for, 
determines production, 58-59 ; only 
relative term, 98-99 ; increase of, shows 
increasing production, 109-110. 

Co-operation, not a remedy for poverty, 
228-230 ; but will follow from the extir- 
pation of poverty, 325-338. 

Debts, public, not capital, 139-140 ; origin 

and abolition, 276-277, 326. 
Demand, not fixed, 177, 179-180. (See 

Supply and Demand.) 
Deutsch, Emanuel, human nature, 355. 
Development, concentration the order 

of, 236. 
Development Philosophy, relations to 

Malthusianism, 74-76 ; insufficiency of, 

339-361. 
Discount, high rates of, not interest, 19. 
Distribution, terms of exclusive, 31, 119 

iiQ ; laws of, 1 12-163 ; their necessary 

relation, 117-121 ; as currently taught, 

118; contrasted with true laws, 160; 

equality of, 324. 

Education, no remedy for poverty, 221- 
222. 

Exchange, functions of, 24-25, 59-61 ; a 
part of production, 38 ; brings increase, 
134, 137 ; extends with progress of civ- 
ilization, T45 ; promotes civilization, 
366. 

Exchanges, credit in, 200-201 ; effect of 
wages on international, 224-225. 

Fawcett, Prof., Indian expenditures, 

88 n: value of land in England, 209. 
Fawcett, Mrs., laborers maintained by 

capital, 55 ; land tax, 209, 304. 
Feudal system, recognition of common 

rights to land, 270-272, 276-277 ; infeu- 

dation, 287-288. 
Fortunes, great, 142, 143, 280-281, 324. 
Franklin, Benjamin, his economy, 220. 

Government, improvements in, increase 
production, 165, 184 ; will not relieve 
poverty, 216-218 ; simplification and 
change of character, 325-338 ; ten- 
dency to republicanism, 379-380 ; trans- 
ition to despotism, 218. 

Guizot, Europe after fall of Roman 
Empire, 270 ; the question that arises 
from a review of civilization, 397. 

Hyndman, H. M„ Indian famine, 88-89. 

Improvements in the arts, effect upon 
distribution, 176-184; in habits of 



408 



INDEX. 



industry and thrift, will not relieve 
poverty, 219-223 ; upon land, their 
value separable from land values, 246- 
247, 305-307. 

India, cause of poverty and famine, 84- 
90 ; civilization, 344, 345, 357. 

Industrial depressions, extent and signifi- 
cance, 9, 388 ; conflicting opinions as to 
cause, 12-13 ; their cause and course, 
189-203; connection with railroad build- 
ing, 197-199 ; passing away, 202-203. 

Industry, not limited by capital, 23, 45 • 
may be limited in form and productive- 
ness by capital, 62-66. 

Interest, confusion of term with profits, 
1 1 5-1 16 ; proper signification, iig, 127 ; 
variations in, 127-128 ; cause of, 128- 
138 ; justice of, 138 j profits mistaken 
for, 138-143 ; law of, 143-149 ; normal 
point of, 145-146 ; formulation of law, 
149. 

Interest and wages, evident connection, 
18-20 ; relation, 125-126, 146-149, 160 • 
why higher in new countries, 162-163.' 

Inventions, labor-saving, failure to 
relieve poverty, 7-9 ; advantage of, 
goes primarily to labor, 132, 143-144 • 
except when not diffused, 183 ; effect 
of, 176-184 ; brought forth by freedom, 

^ 376-377- 

Ireland, cause of poverty and famine, 
91-94 ; effect of introduction of potato, 
220. 

Labor, purpose of, 23-25, 178, 287 ; mean- 
ing of term, 31 ; produces wages, 21- 
25, 39-54 ; precedes wages, 44-46 j em- 
ploys capital, 120, 143 ; eliminated from 
production, 148-149 ; productiveness va- 
ries with natural powers, 150-151 ; no 
fixed barriers between occupations, 
i54~i55 ; value of, reduced by value of 
land, 163 ; supply and demand, 195-196 ; 
land necessary to, 196, 213-214 ; cause 
of want of employment, 196 ; family, 
120-121 ; combination, 223-228 ; only 
rightful basis of property, 240-242 ; 
efficiency increases with wages, 318- 
319 ; not in itself repugnant, 335. 

Labor and Capital, different forms of 
same thing, 120, 146, 149 ; whence idea 
of their conflict arises, 138-139, 143 ; 
harmony of interests, 145-149. 

Laborers, not maintained by capital, 54- 
61 ; where land is monopolized, have 
no interest in increase of productive 
power, 204 ; made more dependent by 
civilization, 205-206 ; organizations of, 
223-228; condition not improved by 
division of land, 233-236 ; their enslave- 
ment the ultimate result of private 
property in land, 249-257. 

Land, meaning of term, 31 ; value of, is 
not wealth, 32, 12X-122 ; diminishing 
productiveness cited in support Mal- 
thusian Theory, 72-73 ; iiow far true, 
98-99, 166-176 ; maintenance of prices, 
199 ; estimated value of in England, 
209 ; effects of monopolization in Eng- 
iand, 209-211 ; relation of man to, 213- 



214 ; division of, will not relieve pov- 
erty, 232-236 ; tendency to concentra- 
tion m ownership, 232-234; necessity 
lor at5©lishing private ownership, 236- 
238 ; injustice of private property in, 
236-285; absurdity of legal titles to, 
246, 242-249 ; aristocracy and serfdom 
spring from ownership of, 214, 252-257, 
370-371 . purchase by government, 258 
-260 ; development of private owner- 
ship, 265-277 ; commons, 272 ; tenures 
in the United States, 278-285 ■ private 
ownership incoijsistent with l^est use, 
286-290 ; how may be made common 
property, 290-309 ; effects of this, 310- 
338 ; increase of productiveness from 
better distribution of population, 323 «. 

Landowners, power of, 122, 213-214^ 249- 
257; ease of their combination, 227; 
their claims to compensatiion, 257-265 : 
will not be injured by confiscation of 
rent, 320-338. 

Latimer, Hugh, increase of rent in Six- 
teenth Century, 210. 

Laveleye, M. de, on small land holdings, 
235-236 ; primitive land tenures, 267 ; 
Teutonic equality, 269-270. 

Lawyers, confusions in their terminol- 
ogy, 242 ; their inculcation of the 
sacredness of property, 265 ; influence 
on land tenures, 268 n. 

Life, quantity of human, 81-82 ; limit 
to, 95-99 ; reproductive power gives 
increase to capital, 133; balance of, 
144 ; meaning of, 403. 

Macaulay, English rule in India, 86: 
future of United States, 385. 

Machinery. (See Inventions.) 

McCulloch, on wages fund, 20 n ; defini- 
tion of capital, 28 ; compared, 35-36; 
principle of increase, 75 •, Irish poverty 
and distress, 93 ; rent, 169 ; tax on rent, 
304,-305-307. 

Malthus, purpose of Essay on Popula- 
tion, 73 ; its absurdities, 77-78, loi ; his 
other works treated w^ith contempt, 
78 n': fall of wages in Sixteenth Cen- 
tury, 209-210 ; cause of his popularity, 
73-74, 243 n. 

Malthusian Theory, stated, examined and 
disproved, 68-111 ; as stated by Mal- 
thus, 69-70; as stated by Mill, 70-71, 
103-104 ; in its strongest form, 71 ; its 
triumph and the causes, 72-81 ; harmo- 
nizes with ideas of working classes, 
73 ; defends inequality and discourages 
reform, 73-74, 103-104, 243 n ; its exten- 
sion in development philosophy, 75-76 ; 
now generally accepted, 76 ; its illegit- 
imate inferences, 78-111 ; facts which 
disprove it, 103-111 ; its support from 
doctrine of rent, 72-73, 98-99, 166-167 ; 
effects predicated of increase of popu- 
Ijition result from improvements in the 
arts, 176-184 ; the ultimate defense of 
property in land, 243 n. 

Man, more than an animal, 95-97, 99-10I1 
223, 334, 339-341, 345 ; his power to 
avail himself of the reproductive forces 



INDEX. 



409 



of nature,, 97 ; primary right and 
power, 240: desire for approbation, 
328-330; selfishness not the master 
motive, 331-332 ; his infinite desires, 
loo-ioi, 334-335, 362, 182, 179-180 , how 
improves, 341 ; idea of national or race 
life, 348-349: cause of differences and 
progress, 340-361 ; hereditary trans- 
mission, 354-361 ; social in his natuie, 
364. 

Mill, John Stuart, definition of capital, 
28, 56 ; industry limited by capital, 45 «, 
54-55 ; Malthusian doctrine, 70-71, 82 ; 
effect of unrestricted increase of popu- 
lation, 103-104 ; confusion as to profits 
and interest, 116 ; law of rent, 123 ; 
wages, 157 ; government resumption 
of increase of land values, 259-260 ; 
influence of Malthusianism, 261-262 ; 
tax on rent, 304. 

Money, when capital, 37 ; in hands of 
consumer, 38 n; confounded with 
wealth, 47-48 ; lack of commodities 
spoken of as lack of, 193. 

Monopolies, profits of, 140-142 ; cause of 
certain, 296-297. 

More, Sir Thomas, ejectments of cot- 
tagers, 210. 

Nature, its reproductive power, 132-134 ; 
utilization of its variations, 134, 136- 
137 ; equation between reproduction 
and -destruction, 144 ; impartiality of, 
241. 

Nicholson, N. A., on capital, 29. 

Nightingale, Florence, causes of famine 
in India, 88, 88 «, 89 n. 

Perry, Arthur Latham, on capital, 29 ; 
rent, 165. 

Political economy, its failui'e, its nature 
and its methods, 13-14 ; doctrines based 
upon the theory that wages are drawn 
from capital, 21 ; importance of defini- 
tions, 25-26, 30 ; its terms abstract- 
terms, 39 ; confusion of standard treat- 
ises, 44-45, 116-11S, 160; the erroneous 
standpoint which its investigators have 
adopted, 119-120 ; its fundamental prin- 
ciple, 13, 150, 160, 402 ; writers on, 
stumbling over law of wages, ^58 
compared with astronomy, 161-162 
deals with general tendencies, 202 ^ 
admissions in standard works as to 
property in land, 258-259 ; principles 
not pushed to logical conclusions, 305 ; 
the Physiocrats, 305 ; unison with 
moraltruth, 167-168, 347-348 ; its hope- 
fulness, 400 ; effect on religious ideas, 
399-400. 

Population and Subsistence, 68-111. (See 
Malthusian Theory.) 

Population, inferences as to increase, 77 ; 
of world, no evidence of increase in| 
79-82 ; present, 84 n ; increase of de- 
scendants no'- increase of, 83-84 : only 
limited by space, 98-99 ; real law of 
increase, 101-103; effect of increase 
upon production and distribution, 166- 
176 ; increase of increases wealth, 103- 



III ; puts land to intenser uses, 232- 
233 ; increase in United States, 283. 

Poverty, its connection with material 
progress, 9-12 ; failure to explain this, 
12-13 ; where deepest, 163 ; why it 
accompanies progress, 203-214 ; remedy 
for, 236-238 ; springs from injustice, 
24s, 392 ; its effects, 256-257, 327-333. 

Price, not measured by the necessity of 
the buyer, 136 ; equation of equalizes 
reward of labor, 150. 

Production, same principles obvious in 
complex as in simple forms, 23, 25 ; fac- 
tors of, 31, 119, 149, 195, 213-214 • in- 
cludes exchange, 38 ; the immediate 
result of labof, 50 53 ; directed by 
demand for consumption, 58-59 ; func- 
tions of capital in, 61-67, 120-121 ; simple 
modes of, sometimes most efficient, 65- 
66 ; only relative term, 98-99 ; increased 
shown by increased consumption, log- 
in ; meaning of the term, 113-114 ; 
utilizes reproductive forces, 132-134 ; 
time an element in, 132-136 ; the modes 
of, 137 ; recourse to lower points does 
not involve diminution of, 167-169 ; 
tendency to large scale, 232-233, 236, 
383 ; susceptible of enormous increase, 
310-320, 335-336, 394-395- 

Profits, meaning of the term and confu- 
sions in its use, 115-119, 138-143. 

Progress, human, current theory of con- 
sidered, 339-349 ; in what it consists, 
449-461 ; its law, 361-377, 390-396 • 
retrogression, 377-390. 

Progress, material, connection with pov- 
erty, 9-12, 163 ; in what it consists, 165 ; 
effects upon distribution of wealth, 166 
-184 ; effect of expectation raised by, 
184-188 • how it results in industrial 
depressions, 189-203 ; why it produces 
poverty, 203-214. 

Pi'operty, basis of, 239-242, 246 ; errone- 
ous categories of, 242 ; derivation of 
distinction between real and personal, 
273 ; private in land not necessary to 
use of land, 286-290 ; idea of, transferred 
to land , 370. 

Protection, its fallacies have their root in 
belief as to wages, 17 ; effect on agri- 
culturists, 321-323 ; abolition by Eng- 
land, effect of, 184 ; how protective 
taxes fall, 321-323. 

Quesnay, his doctrine, 305, 310. 

Rent, bearing upon Malthusian Theory, 
72-73, 98-99, 166-176, 176-184 ; meaning 
of the term, 121 ; arises from monopoly, 
122 ; law of, 123-125 ; its corollaries, 
125, 159-161 ; effect of theii recognition, 
126 ; as related to interest, 148-149 ; as 
related to wages, 149-159 ; advance of 
explains -why wages and interest do 
not advance, 162-163 ; increased by 
increase of population, 166-176 ; in- 
creased by improvements, 1 76-1.84 ; by 
speculation, 184-188 ; speculative ad- 
vance in, the cause of industrial de- 
pressions, 189-203 ; advance in ex- 



4^(j 



INDEX. 



plains the persistence of poverty, 203; 
214 ; increase of, not prevented by ten- 
ant right, 234 ; or by division of land- 
235-236 ; serf, generally fixed, 256 , 
confiscation of future increase, 259- 
260 J a continuous robbery, 262-263 
feudal rents, 270-272 ; their abolition 
274-276 ; their present value, 276-277 
rent now^ taken by the State, 288-289 
State appropriation of, 290-309, 370^ 
371 ; taxes on, 294-309 ; effects of thus 
appropriating, 310-338. 
Reade, Winwood, Martyrdom of Man, 

343-344- 

Religion, necessary to socialism, 231 : 
promotive of civilization, 366-367, 374- 
375 ; Hebrew, effects on race, 356 ; 
retrogression in, 386-387 ; change going 
on, 389-390 ^ animosities created by, 
365 n ; consensus of, 403. 

Ricardo, definition of capital, 28 ; infer- 
ence as to population, 55 ; enunciation 
of law of rent, 123 ; narrow view of, 
125, 164-165 ; tax on rent, 304. 

Royce, Samuel, Deterioration and Race 
Education, 388 n. 

Slaveholders of the South, their view of 
abolition, 254-255. 

Slavery, chattel, comparatively trivial 
effects of, 251 ; modifying influences, 
255-256 ; not truly abolished in iJnitcd 
States, 257, 284 ; never aided progress, 

376-377- 

Smith, Adam, definition of capital, 27, 
301 34i 35-37; recognizes ' truth as to 
source of wages, and then abandons it, 
40 ; influence of Malthusian Theory 
upon, 69 ; profits, 115 ; how economists 
have followed him, 116-117 ; differ- 
ences of wages in different occupa- 
tions, 152-154 ; his failure to appreciate 
the laws of distribution, 158 ; taxation, 
301-303. 

Socialism, its ends and means, 230-232 ; 
practical realization of its ideal, 310- 

^338. 

Social organization and life, possible 
changes, 325-338. 

Spencer, Herbert, compensation of land 
owners, 259, 262 ; public ownership of 
land, 291; evolution, 341,348; human 
progress, 343 ; social differences, 360- 
361. 

Strikes, 225-228 

Subsistence, population and, 68-111 ; 
increases with population, 95-98 ; can- 
not be exhausted, 98-99 ; included in 
w^ealth, 104-105, 178 ; demand for not 
fixed, 179-180. (See Malthusian The- 
ory.) 

Supply and demand, of labor, 153 ; rela- 
tive terms, 193 ; as affected by wages, 
223-224. 

Swift, Dean, his Modest Proposal, 93. 

Taxatictti, eliminated in considering dis- 



tribution, 114 ; reduction of, will not 
relieve poverty. 216-218 ; considered, 
294-309 ; canons of, 294 ; effect upon 
production, 294-298 ; ease i.nd cheai>- 
ness in collection, 298; certainty, 300 • 
equality of, 301-303 ; opinions on, 300^ 
305 ; objections to tax on rent, 303-309 • 
cause of manifold taxation, 308-309; 
how taxation falls on agriculturists! 
321-323 ; effects of confiscating rent by 
taxation, 310-338. 

Tennant, Rev. Wm., cause of famme in 
India, 85-86. 

Thornton, Wm., on wage fund, 17 «,• on 
capital, 29. 

Values, equation of, 144. 

Wages, current doctrine, 16 ; it coincides 
with vulgar opinion, 17 ; but is incon- 
sistent with facts, 17-20 ; genesis of 
current theory, 20 ; difference between 
it and that herein advanced, 21-22 ; not 
drawn from capital but produced by 
labor, 21, 22-25,39-54; meaning of the 
term, 26-27 ; always subsequent to 
labor, 44-46 ; fallacy of the assumption 
that they are drawn from capital, 44- 
46 ; for services, 46 ti ; connection be- 
tween current doctrines and Malthu- 
sian Theory, 69-70, 72-73'; confusion of 
terms produced by current theory, 117 ; 
rate of, 150 ; law of, 149-159 ; -formu- 
lated, 156 ; in different occupations, 
152-155 ; as quantity and as proportion, 
159 ; not increased by material progress, 
220-221 ; minimum fixed by standard of 
comfort, 219 ; effect of increase or 
decrease on employers, 224 ; equilib- 
rium of, 225-226 ; not increased by 
division of land, 234-236 ; why they 
tend to wages of slavery, 250-251 j effi- 
ciency of labor increases with, 318-319, 

Wages and Interest, high or low to- 
gether, 18-26 ; current explanation, 18 ; 
Cairne's explanation, 19 ; true explana-^ 
tion, 125-126, 146-149, 162-163 ; formu- 
lated, 160. 

Wages of Superintendence, 117 ; used to 
include profits of monopoly, 140. 

Walker, Amasa, capital, 29. 

Walker, Prof. F. A., wages, 17 n : capital, 
29. . 

Wayland, Professor, definition of capital, 
28-29. 

Wealth, increase of, not generally shared, 
11; meaning of term, 32-34; inter-, 
changeability of, 39, 104-105, 133-134. 
178-180; confounded with money, 47- 
48 ; increases with population, 104-110 : 
accumulated, 108-109 ; laws of distribu- 
tion, 112-164; formulated, 160; nature 
of, 108-110, 132-133, 150-151 ; pohticas 
effects of unequal distribution, 217-218, 
380-386; effects of just distribution, 
315-320, 324, 325-338. 



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LOVELL'S LIBRARY. 



693 Border Beagles, by W. G. Simms. .30 

694 The Shadow of a Sin, B. M. Clay..lU 

695 Wedded and Parted, by B. M. Glay.lO 

696 i'he Master of the Mine, Buchanan. 10 

697 'The Forayer^, by Simms 30 

698 The Mistletoe Bough,M.E.Braddon.20 

699 Selt: or Bearer, Walter Besant ...10 

700 In Gupid's Net, by B. M. Clay 10 

701 Ladv Darner's Secret, B. M. Ulay..20 

702 Gharlemjnt, by W. G. Simms 30 

703 Eiitaw, by W. G. Simms oO 

704 Evolution, Rev. C. F. Deems, D.D.20 

705 Beaucb.ampe, bv W. G. Simms 30 

706 N.J. 99, by Arthur Griffiths 10 

707 Fors Clavigera, by Raskin. P't I. 30 

708 Fors Glavigera, by Ruskin. PtII..30 

709 Woman against Woman, bv Holmes. <0 

710 Picciola, by J. X. B. Saiiitine. ...10 

711 Undine, by Baron de la Motte 

Fouque 10 

712 Woman, by August Bebel oO 

713 Fors Glavigera. by Ruskin. P't III.30 

714 Fors Glavigera, by Ruskin. P't IV.SO 

715 A Gardiiiai Si:., by Hugh Gonway.20 

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717 AGonntryGentleman,Mrs.Oliphaiit.20 

718 A Gilded Sin, by B. M. Clay 10 

719 Rory O'More, by Samuel Lover 20 

720 Between Two Loves, B. M. Clay... 20 

721 Ladv Branksmere, by The Duchess. 20 

722 TheEvd Genius, by Wilkie Collins.20 
72i Running the Gauntlet, by Yates. . .20 
721 Broken to Harness, Edmund yatep.20 

725 Dr. Wilmer's Love, M-rgaret Lee..25 

726 Austin Eliot, by Henry Kins.'^ley..20 

727 For Another's Shi, by B. M. Clay.. 20 

728 The H llyars and Burtons, King.siey 20 

729 In Prison and Out, by Stretton 20 

730 Romance of a Young Girl, by Clay. 20 

731 Leighton Court, by Kingsley .20 

732 Victory Deane, byCecirGriffith. 20 

733 A Queen amongst Women, byClay.lO 

734 Vineta, by B. Werner. 20 

735 A Mentil Struggle., The Duchess.. 20 

736 Geoffrey Hamlyn, lay H. Kingsley. SO 

737 The Haunted Chamber, "Duchess".10 

738 A Golden Dawn, by B. M. Clay 10 

739 Like no Other Love, by B. M. Clay. 10 

740 A Bitter Atonement, by B. M. Clay. 20 

741 Lorimer and Wife, by Margaret Lee. 20 

742 Social Solutions No. 1, by Howland.lO 
'3 A Woman's Vengeance, by Holmes. 20 

Evelyn's Polly, by B. M. Clay 20 

'ving or Dead, by Hugh Conway.. 20 

">n's Bargain. Mrs. Alexander. .20 

Solutions, No. 2, by Howland.lO 

■"""'^alace, by Benjamin. ..20 

•bridge, by H!trdy..20 

'■>^' ■^'"^TG;h Conway.lO 

'.-o i;'f ., .i^ock.. ...'20 

' Clay.... 20 

-iniivl. ■ "owland.lO 

Tokai.20 

' . . 20 



756 Conspiracy, by Adam Badeau... .25 

757 Doris' Fortune, by P. Warden 10 

758 Cynic Fortune, by D. C. Murray... 10 

759 Foul Play, by Chas. Reade 20 

760 Fair Women, by Mrs. Forrester 20 

761 Count of Monte Cristo, Part I., by 

Alexandre Dumas 20 

761 Count of Monte Cristo, Part II., by 

Alexandre Dumas 20 

762 Social Solutions, No. 4, by Howland.lO 

763 Moths, by Ouida 20 

764 A Fair Mystery, by Bertha M. Clay. 20 

765 Social Solutions, No. 5, by Hovfland.lO 

766 Vixen, by Miss Braddon , 20 

767 Kidnapped, by R. L. Stevenson.. . .20 

768 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and 

Mr. Hyde, by R. L. Stevenson.. 10 

769 Prince Otto, by R. L. Stevenson. .. 10 
7T0 The Dynamiter, byR. L. Stevenson. 20 

771 The Old .Mam'selle's Secret, by E. 

Marlitt 20 

772 Mysteries of Paris, Part I., by Sue.20 

772 Mysteries of Paris, Fart II., by Sue.20 

773 Put Yourself in His Place, by Reade. 20 

774 Social Solutions, No. 6, by Howland.lO 

775 The Three Guardsmen, byDumas.20 

776 The Wandering Jew, Part I., by Sue.20 

776 The Wandering Jew. Part II., by Sue.20 

777 A Second Life, by Mrs. Alexander.20 

778 Social Solutions. No. 7, by Howland.lO 

779 My Friend Jim, by W. E. Norris . . 10 
7>0 Bad to Beat, by Hawley Smart. . . .10 

781 Betty's Visions, by Broughton 15 

'7S2 Social Solutions, No. 8, bv Howland.lO 

783 The Octoroon, by Miss Braddon.... 20 

784 Les Miserables, Part I., by Hugo. .20 
784 Les Miserables, Part II., by Hugo. 20 

784 Les Miserables, Part HI., by Hugo. 20 

785 Social Solutions, No. 9, by Howland.lO 

786 Twenty Years After, by Dumas .... 20 

787 A Wicked Girl, by Mary Cecil Hay . 10 

788 Social Solution=^,No.lO, by Howland.lO 

789 Charles O'Malley, P't I., by Lever. 20 

789 Charles O'Malley, Ft II., by Lever. 20 

790 Othmar, by Ouida 20 

7^1 Social Solutions,No.ll.by Howland.lO 

792 Her Week's Amusement, by "The 

Duchess" 10 

793 New Arabian Nights, by Stevenson. 20 

794 Tom Bnrke of Ours, P't I , by Lever.20 

794 Tom Burke of Ours, P't II.,byLever.20 

795 special Solutions.No.l2, byHowland.lO 

796 Property in Land, byHenry Georg.-'.IS 

797 A Phantom Lover, by Vernon Lee. 10 

798 The Prmce of the Hundred Soups, 

bv Vernon Lee 10 

799 Maid, Wife, or Widow? by Mrs. 

Alexander 10 

800 Thurns and Orange Blossoms, by 

B. M. Clay 10 

801 Romance of a Black Veil, by Claj^.lO 

802 L^dyVal worth's Diamonds 10 

803 Love's Warfare, by B. M. Clay 10 

804 Madolins Lover, by B. M. Clay 20 



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